


Bittersweet

by puxi



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: + mentions of suicide; death & forms of self-harm, Flashbacks, M/M, Slow Burn, all the canon tigger warnings, and boris knocks some sense into him, and they live happily ever after, as he should, in which theo is a lil sissy, mmayybe, so read at your own risk, that being said it has cute stuff and (explicit) sexy stuff too, this fic is NSFW, what can i say - i'm a depressed bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-12 23:03:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puxi/pseuds/puxi
Summary: Haunted by memories of times past, Theo finds himself in Europe after settling the matter with the fake furniture pieces, seeking for something he himself doesn't know what it is. Now it’s time to settle a bigger issue. A personal one. He knows nothing can ever be the same again, but it would be unfair not to at least try. Try what?Must he say it?Can he say it?
Relationships: Theodore Decker & Boris Pavlikovsky, Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 68
Kudos: 221





	1. The Golden Lighter

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written mlm fanfiction before and never about book/film characters. this is also an impulsive post because i love these fools too much and i WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY. but i can't promise they will be.
> 
> anyway, enjoy

Toronto was supposed to be the last stop of his trip. He had gone there to see Misty von Keller, a semi-famous model who married a German wine merchant from a wealthy family and had wandered into Hobart and Blackwell out of sheer boredom one day, impulsively buying a Queen Anne dressing table from the 18th century that was obviously a modified original after only five minutes of being in the shop. He didn’t even have to talk to her about the piece, it was one of those ‘I saw it, I liked it, send it to this address’ kind of situations that made Theo a lot of money with little effort. Stupid people who had stumbled upon a fortune and looked for ways to spend it in the flashiest ways. Except, when he arrived at their house and a middle aged woman dressed in simple clothes opened the door wide enough for him to see that the room behind her was almost completely empty, he thought a person as rich and extravagant as Misty von Keller, who came into the shop dressed head-to-toe in custom designer pieces in the most vibrant of colours, isn’t someone who would adopt the minimalistic lifestyle. Something was wrong.

‘Good evening,’ he said to the woman, deciding it was too late to turn back now. ‘I’m so sorry for the interruption, but may I please speak with Misty von Keller? Is she home?’

‘I’m afraid she isn’t. What is this regarding?’

Theo smiled uncomfortably. ‘It is rather a … personal matter. Do you know if she’ll be back soon? It’s quite important.’

‘Miss von Keller has returned to Germany with Mister von Keller. He has been called back unexpectedly and they are currently in the process of moving houses.’

Theo’s heart sunk. He could not hide the surprise on his face. ‘What?’

‘Yes, they left about a week ago. The movers are coming tomorrow to pick up the remaining of their belongings.’

He didn’t even know what to say to that. He should have called. Why didn’t he call?

‘Well, did she leave a forwarding address with you or a telephone number?’ The woman hesitated. ‘Is there any way I can get in contact with her at all?’

She must have sensed his despair because she went back inside and returned with a business card saying it’s just a sample the lady left at the house, but he could reach her at that telephone number.

Three hours later, back in his hotel room, tired, despairing and above all, pissed with himself for not thinking of calling before dropping by unannounced, Theo was drinking his second bottle of wine from the mini fridge (he’d given up hard liquor months ago) and smoking a cigarette, nervously fiddling with his hair while hunched over his laptop, trying to book a flight to fucking Frankfurt after finally getting in touch with Misty who told him that yeah, they’re in Frankfurt now, that Markus’ mother is really sick, they had to move back, that it was really boring and _such _a pain to move halfway across the world, but that he’s more than welcome to drop by any time because it wasn’t like she had anything better to do other than spend time with Markus’ mother. It was a very long phone call, one in which Theo didn’t manage to get a single word in, much less tell her he was coming because he had sold her a fake Queen Anne at triple the price it was actually worth.

And so, fourteen hours later, he was on a plane yet again, on what he hoped would be his last and final stop before finally returning home after over a year of uncomfortable plane seats that were always, no matter the class, much too small for him, shitty plane food, stale airport air, panic inducing take offs and landings, lonely hotel rooms, unknown cities, countless mini bottles of wine that still didn’t help him sleep any easier at night.

He had quite the trouble getting to their house, the taxi driver spoke not a word of English and he had to call Misty again and let her speak with the cabbie, because his own pronunciation of the address wasn’t good enough apparently. An hour and a half of blissful silence later, the car stopped in front of a massive gold-plated looking gate with all kinds of ornaments at the top. Theo leaned forward from the back seat to admire it in the harsh light from the headlights, eyes wide, mouth open, before the cabbie barked something in German in his ear, making Theo flinch back. He had no idea what he had told him, but by the look of it, it was clear he wanted him out of the car. He fumbled with his wallet, pulling out a twenty note, getting another angry gesticulation remark from the cabbie.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t—‘ he started to say, but the cabbie was talking over him and he’d had a long day, he really couldn’t be fucked to understand what the hell he wanted from him, so he took out another twenty, which made him shut up and got out of the car, slamming the door a bit harder than he'd intended. He could hear him yelling in his car as he was driving away. Theo sighed a deep sigh and decided a cigarette was in order before pressing the button he assumed would notify Misty of his arrival. He had quit drugs and most drinking, but he couldn’t give up smoking.

Looking around him for the first time, he noticed he was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. There were no neighbouring houses whatsoever, the enormous gate was the only one on the hill, which made him wonder just how rich Misty’s husband was.

He threw the cigarette and stomped on the stub to put it out before pressing the button, which made a buzzing sound.

‘_Ja?_’ a female voice said from the speakers.

‘Uh, good evening, it’s Th—‘

‘Oh, Mr. Decker! Was wondering when you’d arrive. Come in, come in.’

And just like that, soundlessly, the gates were opening and Theo was dragging his feet over the pebbled pathway up to the biggest and most beautifully illuminated house he had ever seen in his life. The front door was already open and he could see Misty’s figure casting a long shadow on the pavement, surrounded by the yellow light coming from inside.

‘Come, quickly, it’s quite chilly tonight,’ she called as soon as he was within earshot.

‘Oh, how _good_ it is to see you,’ she said as soon as they were inside. ‘Come here.’ Before he knew it, her arms were around his neck and his face was buried in her hair soft as silk, product of all the keratin treatments and whatever other expensive bullshit he assumed models did to their hair. He had no choice but laugh awkwardly and half-heartedly hug her back. She wouldn’t let go, so he had to pat the sides of her body in order to let her know that the hug was over.

‘Did you have a pleasant trip? God, you must be tired. Shall I make us a cup of tea?’

Before he could answer, she was already walking away inside the house. He hung his coat and took off his shoes, following after Misty as fast as he could, afraid of getting lost in the enormity of the house. She led him to the kitchen where he realised that by ‘make us a cup of tea’ she meant have her housekeeper make them a cup of tea.

Sat in one of the tall bar stools with Misty right across from him talking about her mother-in-law and the gravity of her sickness, how she had lost all her hair due to chemotherapy, could barely walk without any help, but how she always insisted on taking morning strolls around the park (they had their own park, it turned out) and how incredibly bored she was, with no friends and Markus gone into town all day every day, Theo couldn’t help but think that the only thing capable of making this endless word vomit from Misty, who, either from sheer loneliness or her overly extroverted way of being, treated him like he was some long lost friend and not a complete stranger she had met in a dark shop in New York a year and a half ago, was a drink.

‘God _damn it_, Zoya,' Misty set down her cup rather forcefully, making it spill a little, 'I _told_ you, no more of this herbal bullshit! That’s for ma.’

‘I’m so sorry, miss, let me make you another one.’

Theo’s heart stopped, he could swear it had. He hadn’t noticed it before from the plain, wrinkled face, tired blue eyes and the grey streaked blonde hair tied neatly in a bun, but her accent was thick enough.

She let out an exasperated sigh. ‘It’s fine, just leave it. Let’s have a real drink,’ she said to Theo, with a wicked smile.

He was so taken aback, he didn’t even have time to find a polite excuse before Misty slid a half full glass of clear liquid over ice to him. ‘Or do you prefer whiskey?’

‘Uh, no, actually, I don’t—‘

‘Zoya, get us some tonic and lemon from the fridge, will you please?’

‘Of course, miss.’

As Zoya opened two small bottles of tonic and set them in front of them both, Misty leaned over the aisle, resting her chin in the palm of her hand, watching him in a way that made him shift uneasily in his chair. He was desperately trying to avoid her gaze, watching Zoya cut a few wedges of lemon.

‘Now leave us.’

Without another word, she left and Theo was alone with Misty.

‘She’s a treasure, I don’t know _what_ I would do without her, but sometimes I think she does things to annoy me on purpose.’ Misty squeezed some lemon into her glass and threw it back in one swift motion. ‘It’s so goddamn boring out here,’ she sighed, pouring herself another glass. ‘I sit by the phone praying my agent would call me one day telling me I have to leave immediately for Italy or something, but it just never happens. You’re by far the most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I moved out here.’

Theo smiled politely. ‘I’m flattered, but I’m not so sure you’ll be as excited after you find out the reason behind my visit.’

‘Oh? And what might that be?’

‘It’s regarding the Queen Anne dressing table I sold you about a year ago back in New York.’

‘Ah, yes,’ she exclaimed, wistfully. ‘It’s so beautiful, I simply could not leave it in Toronto. It was one of the first pieces of furniture I moved out here. What about it?’ She added when Theo didn’t say anything.

‘As you probably know, back then, I wasn’t quite so experienced at selling antiques. I’d only just started, fairly new to the business, untrained eye … I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, but my partner had been so good to me, he mentored me and taught me everything he knew the best way he knew how. Unfortunately, it couldn’t guarantee I would not make mistakes every now and again.’

She smiled politely, her middle finger tapping lightly against her glass. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

'Well…,' God, this never got easier. After a year’s worth of discussions such as this one, Theo still found himself wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him whole just as the words were about to leave his mouth. ‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but the dressing table isn’t a Queen Anne original. It's a reproduction and a quite good one, at that, it certainly fooled me. I deeply apologise for this, it was a grave mistake on my behalf, a misunderstanding which I hope you won’t hold against me, but—' quick breath—'the reason why I’m here is because I’m willing to buy it back from you. At a premium, of course.’

Misty listened caferully, her eyes locked on him, glistening with interest, but otherwise unreadable. She said nothing for a moment that lingered on for a bit too long, enough to make Theo’s anxiety open up a big pit of nothingness in his stomach and he braced himself for an outburst, but then she … _giggled_.

Now Theo was the one who didn’t understand. He’d seen it all from rage masked by cordiality and polite words to full on ‘how could you, this is outrageous, get out’, but nobody ever … laughed at him. He wasn’t sure how to react.

‘Oh, Mr. Decker—‘

‘Theo, please.’

‘Theo,’ she sighed, still smiling. ‘How do I put this…’ she emptied her glass and set it down a bit forcefully. ‘I don’t care.’

He frowned. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Forgive me for being so blunt, but do I look like someone who actually gives a shit about old furniture? Do you think I _care_ whether it’s a Queen whatever original or not? Or about the money?’ She held out her hands, palms up, in a vague gesture at her surroundings. ‘I needed a table for my perfumes. That’s all.’

‘But—‘ he was at a loss, but Misty seemed completely unfazed as she was pouring herself more vodka. Was she laughing at him?

‘It is a beautiful table and it fits perfectly in my boudoir upstairs. Original or not, I have no intention of giving it back. Aren’t you drinking?’ She asked after a moment before taking a big sip or her own drink.

‘But—‘ he ignored her question— 'aren’t you at all upset I practically … ripped you off?’ He couldn’t find a better choice of words. ‘I mean, it is nowhere near worth what I sold it to you for.’

Misty laughed again. She took another big sip and bit down on a wedge of lemon. ‘Like I said, I don’t care about the money. Markus makes twice that every hour, I hardly miss it.’

Less than graciously, she slid off her chair and went to one of the cabinets above the stove, reaching up towards a cookie jar on the very top shelf, nearly dropping it.

‘My secret stash,’ she told Theo, smiling mischievously as she reached inside and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Markus hates it when I smoke, made me throw away all my cigarettes. He knows there’s no way for me to get any unless I go into town, but God knows how badly vodka makes me crave a cigarette. Want one?’ She asked, handing him the pack. He couldn’t refuse. ‘Oh, I do appreciate you coming all the way over here, though. Even if it was for nothing.’

‘I have to admit, I’m still a little surprised. And confused. Like I said, I am more than happy to buy it back from you, I—‘

‘Look, it’s not a big deal. If you’re worried about your reputation, I won’t tell anyone. Nobody comes here anyway,’ she added sullenly. ‘Will you stay for dinner?’

Two hours later, Theo entered his hotel room, left his suitcase in the hallway and went straight to the mini fridge, gulping down a whole bottle of vodka and immediately reaching for another. He was sweating and panting after climbing six flights of stairs, cheeks red from the effort and the three glasses of vodka on the rocks he ended up having with Misty before her husband returned home at dinnertime (‘No, thank you very much, Mr. von Keller, but I really must go, maybe another time.’). Misty was well drunk by then and he decided not to stick around for the domestic that seemed likely to erupt any moment given Misty’s more than tipsy state and the smell of cigarettes that spread from the kitchen all the way to the front door.

Try as he might, he couldn’t convince Misty to accept the check he had written down for her, moreover, she had insisted that she pay _him_ for his travel expenses that turned out to be in vain, but he proved to be just as stubborn as her.

Leaning with his back against the radiator under the window, Theo pulled out his pack of cigarettes and felt his pockets for the lighter, until he finally found it in the inner lining of his coat — a gold zippo so old, the hinges were rusted and the surface was scratched all over, but he found himself refilling it every time the fluid ran out. He ran his fingers over the surface, feeling every little dent and mark. A deep sigh, a long drag, a big gulp and the memories started to flood in.

It was well past midnight, but they were both so hot and so drunk, they decided to ditch their clothes and go for a swim (‘Last one in the pool downs the rest!’). Theo had won, obviously, because Boris was too drunk to process what he’d yelled and by then, he was already at the back of the house. Coming back to the surface, Theo barely had time to take a breath before Boris cannon balled into the water right next to him.

‘Dickhead!’ he yelled as the other boy came back to the surface, trying to push him under by the shoulders, but Boris swatted his hands away, laughing. ‘You scared the living shit out of me!’

‘That was no fair, you cheated!’

‘Not my fault you’re slower than my grandma! Oh, did I mention she’s like seventy?’

‘Fuck off,’ he splashed water in his face. ‘_Pidor_.’

Theo didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t like it, so he dove into the darkness underneath and pulled Boris down under by the ankle, pushing him even deeper by the shoulders, but Boris reached out and grabbed him by a shoulder too, digging his thumb deep just below his collarbone, making Theo open his mouth to yell out of reflex. He swallowed a bunch of water in the process and, soon enough, he was struggling for air himself. Their legs were bumping into each other under the water, hands grabbing the other roughly and desperately, in an attempt to swim to the surface or push each other down, it wasn’t clear. Finally, he pushed a brusque hand towards Boris’ face that would’ve otherwise been a punch and managed to resurface, frantically gasping for air. Almost immediately, Boris emerged next to him with a violent flip of the head, just as out of breath. They sat there, glaring at each other, trying to catch their breaths before starting to laugh uncontrollably for no reason in particular. Soon enough, their teeth were chattering and they had had enough of the water. Jumping in the pool was a good idea for only five minutes, it seemed. They emerged shivering and tripping each other in a haste to get back inside with Popchik on their tails, barking in excitement.

‘I won,’ he said, handing Boris the bottle of vodka that was almost half empty already. The boy looked at him in horror, his eyes wide and dark despite how full of light the living room was. He looked so thin and frail, shivering and hugging himself, his hair a wet mess of curls and the dark circles and the still not fully healed scar on his forehead even more palpable now that his lips were devoid of their usual pink from the cold. ‘Think of it this way, you won’t be so cold anymore.’ Theo was smiling despite his teeth chattering.

‘Yes, _or_,’ his r’s became so much more enunciated when he was drunk, Theo liked to tease him for that, ‘I could just dry myself.’

‘No no no, a bet is a bet.’

‘There _was_ no bet, Potter! You just scream some bullshit and run in the pool! No warning, no nothing! Not fair, you cheated,’ he pointed an accusing finger at him. Theo waited, arm outstretched towards him, holding the bottle of vodka. ‘Don’t look at me like that, am not drinking it.’ Theo said nothing. ‘Fuck’s sake, Potter, no! I will die. Do you want me to die?’

Theo rolled his eyes. ’Okay, tell you what, I’ll help you.’ That seemed to do it. ‘But,’ Boris’ brief excitement fell in an instant, ‘only when you absolutely can’t anymore.’

He groaned long and loudly. ‘Fine,’ he spat. ‘Give me that.’

Theo grinned as he grabbed the bottle from his hand with a dark look on his face. ‘You can do it,’ he tried to sound encouraging, but it only earned him a look that he's seen many many times before, _fuck off, Potter_. He sighed deeply and winced as soon as he brought the bottle to his lips, but taking big gulps anyway. After three or four of those, almost five, Theo saw he was starting to give up.

‘Come on, you pussy, are you even Russian?! What’s wrong with you?’

But vodka started to spill from the corners of his mouth down his chin and neck and he almost threw the bottle away from his lips, but seemed to reconsider, having another gulp or two, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and pushing the rest towards Theo in disgust. He wasn’t moving, hand pressed to his mouth and, for a second, Theo thought he was going to vomit on his floor again, but he only convulsed violently, burped and then winced probably at the taste that came back. Theo waited in anticipation for a moment before he burst out laughing.

‘Well done, I’m almost impressed,’ he said, examining the remaining of the bottle. He’d drunk just over half of it.

‘I fucking hate you, Potter—_hic_,’ he said in a low voice, thick with disgust, at the vodka or at Theo, he didn’t know, but it only made him laugh louder. Coming to himself, he straightened up, flicked the hair from his face and said, ‘Alright, now you.’

Theo knew this was coming. He decided it was better to just get it over with, so he took a deep breath and brought the bottle to his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut, trying not to think about the burning in his throat or the feeling of sickness building up in the pit of his stomach. Boris was cheering just as he was finishing the bottle and, without thinking, threw it across the room in what was supposed to be a celebratory move. They both watched in shock as it hit the wall and shattered.

After a second, Boris roared laughing. ‘Potter, what exactly the fuck is wrong with you?!’ he yelled at him, red faced from laughing at the top of his lungs. ‘_Zachem ty eto sdelal, tuporyl, ty cho, sovsem okhu`el?’_

‘ENGLISH, FUCKHEAD!’ Theo yelled back.

He couldn’t stop laughing. ’Are you fucking insane? You need looney bin, Potter, I’m telling you, something is deeply wrong with you. Coo-coo! Bye-bye _mozgi_.’

‘Fuck you,’ he replied sullenly.

‘Who is going to clean that up now, Popchyk? No no, _cho sdelaesh_, you are too drunk, _debil_,’ he said when Theo went (more like stumbled) to pick up the pieces with his bare hands, ‘Theo, stop, you will cut yourself!’

Too late. One of the pieces already pierced his palm, but Theo never felt it, he only saw the blood drip onto the floor. Around that time everything started to look as if it was glowing from inside, emanating that very familiar halo he kept seeing every time he was drinking with Boris.

‘What did I fucking tell you, dumb fuck?’ He was suddenly kneeling next to him, grabbing a hold of his wrist, making him drop the pieces of broken glass. ‘Look at your bloody hand! C_hert voz’mi… _Why are you so fucking stupid?’ he asked, a strange tone in his voice. ‘Come, let’s go clean you up.’

‘Leave it, I don’t even feel it.’ He was already starting to slur his words a little and he tried to shove Boris away in that very stubborn drunken manner of his, but he grabbed him by both arms and pulled him up, leading him to the kitchen.

‘Keep it there,’ he instructed, placing his hand under the cold water running from the tap and disappearing somewhere into the house.

Despite standing on both legs, Theo kept losing his balance, so he had to lean against the sink for support. The water wouldn’t stop running a deep shade of pink and he was seeing three faucets instead of one. His mouth was dry and throat was scratchy. He could _feel_ himself becoming gradually drunker. Everything was numb, his hand, his head, even his teeth. He kept clenching and unclenching his jaw, trying to force back the feeling in his mouth, but it never happened. The room was spinning and his eyelids felt heavy. He decided he needed to sober up. Water seemed like a good place to start.

‘You are going to drain the planet,’ he soon heard Boris say from behind him and Theo flinched, hitting his temple against the faucet, water spilling all over his face. Boris snickered. ‘Idiot.’

‘That felt good,’ Theo said with a groan, wiping his cheek, mouth and nose all in one sloppy motion.

‘Hitting your head? I bet. Give me your hand.’ He grabbed it, roughly pulling it closer to him, knowing, probably, that he’d try to pull away as soon as he'd start to spray quick puffs of Xandra’s perfume on his cut. Theo shrieked and started punching him in the arm with his right, having nothing else to hit. Boris laughed and ducked his head slightly between his shoulders, but otherwise letting Theo take it out on him. ‘Feels nice, eh? Now you know, _suchyara_.’ He put the perfume bottle on the counter and started to blow gently on Theo's wound. It helped in the moment, but not long after, he stopped.

‘Mother_fucker_, that stings, fuck!’

‘That will sober you right up.’ He wrapped one of Xandra’s ugly blue and green silk scarves a little too tightly around his palm, ignoring Theo’s protests of it being ‘unnecessary’ and smiled, proud of his work. ‘Look at that, good as new. I should become doctor, eh?’

Theo’s head snapped up and looked at him in pure horror. ‘No!’ Boris laughed. ‘I’m serious, don’t.’

‘Calm down, Potter, only joking.’ He leaned over the sink to drink some water as well as Theo sniffed his hand cautiously, immediately flinching away.

‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘Sorry, no more vodka, you drank all, that was best I could find,’ Boris replied from under the faucet. ‘You were right, this was good idea,' he said, water dripping from his chin.

They slowly stumbled back to the living room, swaying like zombies, where the TV was on as background noise showing some trashy reality show and Popper was sniffing curiously at the trail of blood they left on the floor.

‘We should probably clean that soon, though.’

‘Ah, tomorrow,’ Boris replied, waving dismissively and plopping down on the couch. ‘Turn off the lights, will you?’

Theo took a turn about the room, leaning against the walls, turning off all the lights as he went and somehow found it in him to bend over without puking to grab Popchik away from the blood.

‘Scoot over, I need to—I need to sit.’

‘Plenty of floor, Potter,’ Boris mumbled in a lazy, raspy voice Theo had heard many drunken nights before which meant that he was just on the verge of falling asleep, but that didn’t stop him from kicking him just as forcefully when Theo tried to wiggle in the small space between Boris’ feet and the other end of the couch. He finally resigned and let his feet fall onto his lap. Theo couldn’t see straight. He tried focusing on the TV, but it was too bright in the pitch dark room. The scarf around his hand was tied too tightly, he could feel it pulsing underneath the pressure, so he started fumbling clumsily with the triple knot Boris had made, not really getting anywhere with it.

‘What the fuck did you do, Boris?’

‘What?’ he said a bit too quickly and too loudly and Theo knew he’d dozed off.

‘This knot is like the fucking marines tied it.’

‘Here, let me.’

With a little difficulty, Boris sat up and fumbled with the scarf before pulling his hand almost to his chest, probably forgetting for a moment that it was attached to the rest of Theo. At this proximity, he could easily smell the chlorine and smoke in his hair. He got lost in the smell of him and let himself close his eyes for just a second. Suddenly, it felt as if the blood had finally reached his hand and it was such a relief, he sighed out loud.

‘There.’ He opened his eyes and saw Boris throw the scarf on the floor. ‘Shit, Potter. Is looking bad.’ He looked down and saw it too. The blood had dried black around his cut, all messy and crusty all over his palm, which Boris was still holding and turning towards the light from the TV for closer inspection. ‘Does it hurt?’ he suddenly looked up and met his eyes.

He was so close to his face, Theo forgot he had to reply. ‘A little,’ he finally managed meekly after a moment too long. They stood there, inches apart, gazing into each other’s eyes, neither of them saying anything and, just as he felt himself fall into some kind of drunken trance induced by the deep darkness of Boris’ eyes, he bent down and pressed his lips onto his palm ever so softly, so much that Theo was convinced he’d hallucinated it the morning after.

But he hadn’t, he knew that now, because as soon as he looked back up at him, Theo grabbed him by the back of his neck, ignoring pain that shot through his palm and kissed him.

Both of them froze. That wasn't their first kiss, but it was the first time Theo kissed first. He felt like pulling away, but his lips were so soft and so … _warm_, he just couldn’t, he wanted to preserve the feeling for just a little while longer, desperately trying to forge every second of it into his drunken memory. But he did. He slowly drew back, carefully studying Boris’ face for any sign of repulse or anger or disgust, but he was just staring back at him in nothing but sheer surprise. Every muscle in Theo’s body tensed and he dared not move or say anything as he was waiting for his reaction that never came. Panic set in then. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I-I-I don’t know what got into me, I’m—'

But Boris lunged forward putting an end to his rambling by quite literally slamming his mouth onto his, forcefully, teeth knocking against each other and all.

Everything happened fast from there, his mouth was all over him, biting and sucking, kissing and licking, leaving hickeys and scratches on his chest, neck and wherever else he touched him. But touch was probably the wrong word for it, for Boris didn’t _touch_, he grabbed, roughly. He loved the same way he threw a punch, except now, he hit in all the right places. And Theo liked it, judging by his hands which were clutched in tight fists in his hair. Nothing else mattered beyond that point, not how they had somehow ended up on the floor, not how Boris was straddling him and pinning his hands over his head as he had done many times before minus all the biting, not how his cut had opened again and Boris’ hand left bloody trails on his body, not how Theo’s hips kept pushing up against his and definitely not how his boxer briefs were riding so dangerously low, he felt like they might slip off any second — none of it mattered, except their heavy breathing and Boris' smirk at the soft moans Theo never knew he could make.

The memory of it haunted him for a long time after he had left Vegas all those years ago, but just like everything else, it gradually stopped polluting his brain as often, until it faded away completely. But now, after seeing him again, after he came back to him, memories such as this one resurfaced, as if they were the fucking plague. Whenever he had a little something to drink, he would remember that Boris, with his spontaneity and endless blabbering, arguing and debating and ability to mess every stupid little thing up somehow in what he called ‘spicing things up’, really existed and was an actual part of his life; when he had a little more to drink, he had less than pleasant flashbacks (precisely because they were so pleasant), ones that made the blood rush to his cheeks. Those were the ones harder to ignore, since they had such an obvious effect on him. But as big as the lump in his throat was, he couldn’t deny the fact that he did miss him. It felt stupid and it was completely and entirely because of the alcohol, he was sure, but he was longing for him. His heart ... felt heavy. Boris somehow always managed to make him laugh, even in the darkest of times and God knows he could use a good laugh. And besides, he was so close to him now, it seemed ridiculous not to go up there and see him. Just a friendly visit. Hi, hello, was in the neighbourhood, thought I'd pop in. How often was he in Europe anyway? Come think of it, how often did he leave New York at all? Well, before this whole furniture scam thing. So stupid... But yes, no, definitely, seeing him was a good idea. He should definitely do that. Or no, better write him a text, let him know he was coming. He should. Or should he call? No no, he was in no state — he had already moved on to the gin. And it was late. Although he knew Boris was never one to go to bed before midnight... No, a text would be better.

So he reached for his phone and dialled.


	2. Cutting Limes With A Butter Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry in advance for so much russian, i couldn't help myself

His days have all been quite shitty lately, but this one, this particular one was something else. Self-rehab was the worst idea he had ever tried, by far. Nothing compared — starting to sniff glue with Potter back in Vegas, stealing the painting from him, cocaine, ket, crack, that one time he tried fentanyl, a bad trip on shrooms during which he almost killed himself more or less on purpose, all the dealing, all the near-death experiences it brought, fucking Amsterdam, nothing! — to trying to sober up on his own. The first week was bad, but bearable, the second week he could barely remember due to all the drinking, by the time third week rolled around, he was surprised he had made it that far, but now, now he wanted to die.

The first day he’d decided to get clean, he’d asked Gyuri to bring him a month’s worth supply of vodka, whiskey, rum, weed and whatever else he could find to make it all easier or at least bearable; gave him the keys to his flat, his phone, his laptop, let him raid his apartment and strip it clean of all his hidden stashes, locked himself inside and explicitly instructed him not to let him out or anyone in his flat until he wouldn’t be crawling up the walls in desperate want to go down to the nearest corner looking for a quick fix anymore — however long it took. And all that because he hated the idea of going to meetings, collecting badges, sitting in a circle, hearing all those pitiful stories and becoming one of those ‘hello, my name is Boris and I’m an addict’ type of persons. If he was going to do it, he would do it on his own terms and none of that NA bullshit.

He spent his days twitching in front of the TV, restlessly pacing around his apartment, drinking and eating whatever crap Gyuri brought him every two days, smoking a shit ton of a lot more than before, maybe reading for an hour or two if he had a good day (good meaning not as bad as the rest, but still fucking _bad_), but otherwise doing absolutely nothing except think about drugs. And Theo. Always Theo.

The worst part of being sober (relatively) was the amount of time he had to himself to do nothing but think and the place his thoughts just _loved_ to wander to was Vegas, in all its drug and alcohol induced glory. Gory. Glory.

It wasn’t like him to dwell on the past or think about all that sappy shit, but he did now, he couldn’t help it and it killed him, slowly and painfully. He couldn’t tell which was worse, sobriety or longing for something that could’ve happened, should’ve happened, didn’t happen.

New York and Amsterdam felt like a second chance to him, a do-over, a try to make things right. He wanted to tell him, he almost did once or twice, but then he’d nearly fucked it all up royally by almost getting himself _and_ Theo both killed. Then, in Antwerp, things felt different. They were doing almost the same things they used to do back in Vegas — watching films on his couch, getting high (well, Boris was, Theo was just lecturing him about quitting) and chatting about shit, but there was a certain distance between them, a stiffness. Boris felt like that gap the eight years tore between them may never close again and he couldn’t bring himself to admit it then, tell him that he wasn’t only sorry for stealing and then losing the painting — although the guilt of that did eat him alive for many a year — but for the other things too, not coming as he’d promised, not being there for him, not calling or texting back, distancing himself from him, thinking it would be best for the both of them, given how they’d parted ways. It didn’t feel right. After that, even though they’d exchanged numbers and emails to keep in touch, they never did, until last summer on Theo’s birthday when Boris had written him a congratulatory email (‘happy birthday, potter, i will drink to your health tonite. want to join me? ;)’), to which he replied with ‘Thank you, but as tempting as that sounds, I have some things to take care of here.’. That told him everything he needed to hear — Theo still resented him for the whole thing. Boris never tried to get in touch since and he knew Theo wouldn’t either.

He tried to occupy himself with all sorts of things, travelling, partying, fucking random girls, focused on never being too sober for too long, but it only sent him spiralling down into a pit of depression and self-pity so bad, even Gyuri was shocked. He had a serious talk with him one day, which he dismissed laughing because he was high even then (‘Gyuri, what the fuck, you know me, strong as a horse, _zheleznoye zdorov’ye_, I am not dying soon.’), but right after that, around New Year's (or was it later?), he almost OD’d and, needless to say, that scared him straight. Almost. He decided it wasn’t his time to die, not then, not by that. Sobriety was the only way out, not of depression and self-loathing, but of the weird, unpleasant and disturbing feeling that death was breathing down his neck.

He got really drunk that night, the night Gyuri came when he wasn’t supposed to. He mixed a lot of rum with some shitty _samogon_ he had brought him from his ‘own personal collection’ and smoked about four joints in a helpless attempt to mute his brain for a little bit, but it only made it think louder, remember more vividly. Gyuri found him crying on his kitchen floor after attempting to cut some limes for the row of tequila shots he had lined up on the counter (about eight or nine) with a butter knife (Gyuri also took away everything with a sharp edge or pointy end from his flat) and failing, obviously.

‘Hello? _Kto-nibud' doma_?’

Boris thought he was hallucinating.

‘_Papa?_’ he asked, his head snapping up, trying to get his eyes to focus on one of the triple doorways he was seeing.

‘No, stupid shit, it’s me. Where are you? _O_, _Bozhe moi…_’

Boris sniffed and tried to get up, grabbing the edge of the counter. ‘What are you doing here? Is it tomorrow already?’

‘No, I came yesterday.’

‘Then what the _fuck_ _are you doing here?!_’ He didn’t know why he yelled. He was mad he was seeing him like that. He was mad he was like that. But this was Gyuri, he’s seen him in states much worse than this. So why was he so mad, then?

‘I came because _tvoy yobany _phone would not stop ringing since yesterday, _pidoras huev._’

_‘Da poshel ty._’ His hand slipped and he lost his balance when he made a grand gesture of _go fuck yourself_ with his other, clumsily catching himself at the last second. Only Gyuri dared speak to him like that, but it was different with him, not like with the others. Gyuri wasn’t just his co-worker, he was his partner, his friend. But Boris was drunk.

‘Thought it might be important, I could barely sleep, Masha also was giving me hell,’ he continued, ‘but if you would prefer I go, fine.’ He made to leave.

‘No, no! Give me _eto_— _kak nazyvayetsya _— fucking _telefon_,’ he urged with his hand, still supporting himself on the counter. He was swaying.

‘Here you go,’ he pretended to throw it at him and Boris ducked instinctively, muttering a _svoloch_ under his breath as Gyuri was laughing. ‘Here, here.’ Boris snatched the phone from his hand glaring.

Battery was almost full. Nice to know Gyuri didn’t just let it die in a forgotten drawer somewhere in his house. _Twenty-nine _missed calls from a number he hadn’t saved and about forty or so messages from that same number.

_Fuckimg answer your OHONE, Boris, its IMPORTNAT._

_CALL ME BACK!!!!!_

_Im coming over_

Everything was blurry and nothing made sense. He frowned as his Touch ID wasn’t working and he messed up his passcode five times before, with an exasperated sigh, Gyuri grabbed it from his hand and entered it himself.

‘_Spasibo,_’ he muttered, as he opened the text messages.

_Boris, it’s me, answer your phone._

_I need to talk to you, I’m in Frankfurt._

_I’m booking a flight right now._

_What happened to you? Are you alriht?_

_CALL ME_

_Are ou mad I didnt call sooner?_

_Im sorry, ididntkn ow you watnedmetoo_

_Boris, its theo. Fucking CALLMEBACK!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!_

_taht’s it, flight is booked. lets hpe I rememeber where you leive hahahaksjsk_

_oh , its theo btw_

_Mad how my hone doenst capitalism my own fickijng name, but yours yes._

_Did you fucking blOCK MY NUMBER, GANDON????_

_anywya, ill b ein ant were tomrppw, wha ts y o u r. adrress_

_OHits rheo_

There were more, but it was mostly gibberish Boris couldn’t understand. Either that, or he was really fucking fucked. He looked up at Gyuri with wide eyes, not sure if his vision was blurry from the alcohol or the tears. Maybe both.

‘If this is your fucking dealer, I am going to chain you to the _nagrevatel’_, am not kidding.’

‘It’s Potter,’ he said in astonishment. ‘He’s coming … here.’

Gyuri raised an eyebrow. ‘Where?’

‘Here! He’s coming back to me!’ he shouted, laughing through the tears streaming down his face, throwing himself at him and attempting to lift him off the floor in a bear hug, Gyuri, a head taller and about six stones heavier than him. ‘_Eto neveroyatno, Gyuri!’ _he said, pulling away at arm’s length to look at him._ ‘Eto prosto chudo! _Miracle, you understand? He didn’t call _once_, Gyuri, not _once _after he left, and now he’s coming here? No, this is … Christmas! Christmas in February!’ He froze. ‘I have to get ready, I have to clean! This place is _v gavno_, _I_ am _v gavno_! I must sober up, he cannot see me like this!’ He started walking around the kitchen, hiding empty bottles in cupboards and frantically slapping his face.

‘_Nu vse, on soshel s uma, ebany alkash,_’ Gyuri muttered under his breath. ‘Alright, then, I leave, you get ready, put on your makeup, shower coz you need it—’ Boris made a face—‘give back the phone and I go.’

Boris looked at him in horror, clutching the phone to his chest with both hands. ‘No!’

‘What you mean ‘no’? _A nu-ka davay syuda_!’

Boris shook his head vehemently. ‘No!’

’You want me to take it with force?’

‘Gyuri,’ he tried to reason, ‘I must find out where he is, he said he is coming today! That was yesterday! He should be here any minute!’

‘He will find you, give the phone.’

‘No!’ He bolted to the living room, but before he got very far, Gyuri tackled him to the floor, knocking the air out of him. They were wrestling for the phone, muttering all sorts of insults at each other (‘Gyuri, I will _fire_ you!’, ’_Ty tol’ko poprobuy, ya tvoi nogi vyrubayu.’_), Boris, fuelled by a weird alcohol-induced strength, was putting up more of a fight than he would’ve had he been sober and in withdrawal. Finally, Gyuri, more or less accidentally, elbowed him in the face, right on the cheekbone, almost, but not entirely missing his left eye. Boris screamed.

‘OW! _Sukin syn, blyad’, tvari, SUKA! _Are you insane? You want to take my eye out over a _gryubanyy phone_, Gyuri, what is wrong with you?! _Cho, sovsem okhu`el?_’

‘Fuck, Borya, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it—‘

‘You are crazy, Gyuri, you are!’

‘If you give me the phone from the start, we would not be here right now!’

‘_Ot’ebaysya_, Gyuri!’

They were still arguing in Russian, yelling and grunting on the floor when there was a loud knock on his door which made them both freeze. Boris turned to look in the direction of the knock with wide eyes, then back at Gyuri.

‘That’s him!’

Gyuri snatched the phone from his hands and got up, muttering a ‘_tupoy pridurok_’ under his breath as he was straightening his clothes. Boris was up in an instant, walking with big, determined steps to the door, swinging it open, nearly hitting himself square in the face with it.

And there he was, on his doorstep drenched, shivering, looking like a wet dog in fancy clothes and rain-spotted hipster glasses.

‘It took me so fucking long to find this place… Did I mention it’s raining outside?’ was the first thing he said through chattering teeth.

Boris laughed, feeling like he might start crying again at the sight of him. ‘Potter,’ he exhaled, reaching out to grab him by the back of his neck, pulling him in a tight hug that told him just how much he’d missed him. He was happy to notice he returned it with the same intensity. Theo’s whole body was shivering in his arms and his clothes were dampening his own, but he didn’t care. He was here, again, _finally_, after much too long, and he smelled expensive and of rain and only faintly of smoke. He smelled good, he smelled like Theo.

‘Jesus, Boris, you _reek_,’ he said, pulling away to look at him. Then, ‘Fucking hell, how drunk _are_ you?’

‘Just a little,’ he replied with a crooked, mischievous smile.

‘What are you talking about, you can’t even stand straight.’

Boris scoffed. ‘Is nothing,’ he waved his hand dismissively, losing his balance a little, which went against the point he was trying to make.

They stood there for a moment, Boris taking in the sight of him, still incredulous that he was really there, when Theo said:

‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude right from the start, but are you going to let me in? I feel like I’m gonna catch hypothermia standing here.’

That made Boris snap out of it immediately. ‘Of course, of course, come in! Let me make you some tea, you need to warm up, you must be freezing, fucking European weather, am I right?’ He moved sideways, outstretching his arm in invitation, snatching the handle of the carryon from his hand as he walked past him inside the apartment.

‘Oh, no, it’s fine, I can—‘

‘Absolutely not, you are my guest and I take care of you. Gyuri! Do we have tea? Put the kettle on.’

Theo looked surprised. ‘Gyuri is here?’

‘Yes, he’s babysitting me,’ Boris replied sullenly, taking Theo’s coat off. ‘He thinks I might drunk dial my wife or something.’

‘If by that you mean go snort _shtukaturka_ in the nearest dump, then yes, I am babysitting you,’ Gyuri said, suddenly appearing in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, not looking especially happy to see Theo.

‘Uh, hi, Gyuri,’ Theo said and then frowned. ‘What’s he talking about?’ he asked in a low voice, turning to Boris, who just made an impatient _tsk_ noise and rolled his eyes as if saying _don’t listen to him_.

‘I mean he is not supposed to see anyone right now, he is in rehab.’

‘Rehab?’

‘He’s exaggerating, I am just going through a clean phase. Gyuri, be a _sladushka_ and put the kettle on like I asked, yes?’ His voice, even though pleasant enough, had a suggestive undertone to it he hoped Gyuri would understand.

‘You told me not to let anyone in.’

Boris wanted to slap him with a chair. ‘And now am telling you to go put on the kettle.’ Gyuri didn’t move. ‘_Gyuri_,’ Boris suddenly sounded almost scary, his tone as stern as Theo had probably ever heard it, ‘less standing around and more go to the kitchen. Now, if possible.’

Gyuri clenched his jaw, but eventually walked into the other room. Boris didn’t move, glaring after him, forgetting for a second that Theo was even there. Then, when he awkwardly cleared his throat next to him, he put on a smile and turned to him. ‘Come, let’s get you out of those wet clothes. You can take a shower too if you want, just through here.’ He was leading him past the living room and the kitchen towards the other side of the house, happily noticing in passing that Gyuri was indeed making tea.

‘Yeah, I … I remember where your room is.’

‘How very flattered I am, Potter. After all this time?’

‘Well, Boris, your apartment isn’t especially big.’

‘That may be so, but where it lacks in size, it makes up in _personality, _character,’ he clenched his fist, looking at him with fiery eyes. He finally smiled. It was small, nothing special, but such a sight for sore eyes, it warmed him right up.

‘Alright, okay, Michael Smith, calm down.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘He’s a—,’ he shook his head—'it doesn’t matter.’

Boris decided he didn’t really care either. ‘Alright. Come, then.’

‘I think I’ve got it, Boris. You should probably lay down, drink some water or something.’

‘But I haven’t seen you in so long! You show up here out of the sky like this and tell me to go lie down? Am a little hurt, Potter.’

‘What do you mean, ‘out of the sky’? I told you I was coming. Didn’t you get my … messages?’ And then, before he could reply, ‘Did you block my number?’

‘No! Gyuri took my phone, I only saw your—’ he laughed a little, remembering—'I saw like five minutes before you actually showed up.’ Theo raised an eyebrow at him, opening his mouth to say something, but Boris cut him off. ‘Long story, will explain later, go shower, you’re dripping all over my floor,’ he urged, pushing him towards the back of the house.

When Theo was out of sight, Boris returned to the kitchen where Gyuri was just taking out two mugs God knows where from because Boris couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a mug or actual dishes in his flat.

‘You—' he pointed at him—'need to go. Now.’

Gyuri slowly closed the cupboard and turned to look at him, face unamused. ‘What.’

‘Potter is here, we have a lot to talk about. You are inconvenience.’

‘You mean … how do they say it, cock block?’

Boris squinted his eyes at him and blinked incredulously. He sighed, closing them shut for a brief second. ’Gyuri, I will say this only once, in the nicest way possible._ Po'shyol 'na hui._’

He laughed, but then his expression was serious again. ‘Borya, I do not think this is good idea. That boy is bad influence on you.’

‘If anyone is a bad influence here, Gyuri, that would be _me_.’

‘Exactly! You are easy to tempt into doing stupid shit, because you _are _stupid shit! He will piss on all the progress and hard work you have done so far. This is not good idea.’

‘What the fuck are you, my mum?’ He shouted. Then took a step closer and said, in Russian, but still lowering his voice, just in case, ‘Look, I have not seen him since Amsterdam. Do you remember Amsterdam, Gyuri? We almost died there, both of us. And you know how much I do not like to risk my life for people, but I did. For him. And for that fucking bird he likes so much. Would I do that if it were anyone else? No. Now, can I spend a couple of days with my best fucking friend without feeling like I am in high school and have to leave the door open so my crazy obsessed christian mother doesn’t think we do un-godly things to each other or not?’

Gyuri started down at him, sucking his cheeks in and contemplating for a moment. Boris was exhaling noisily out of his mouth. His senses sharpened somewhat and everything started to slowly merge into one again instead of floating in threes and fours around each other.

‘I’m taking the keys. And your phone.’

‘Seriously, Gyuri—‘

‘Shut up. You are not fucking things up again. I am tired of cleaning after you, coming here to find you with foam at the mouth because you can’t handle your shit. _Perestan' pytat'sya ubit' sebya.’_

‘I wasn’t trying to _kill_—‘

‘This time, you are fucking doing this and no crying and complaining like a bitch. I don’t care.’

Boris wanted to tell him to fuck off, that nobody talks to him like that, nobody orders him around, especially not in his own house, but he figured that, at this point, it’d be easier to shut up than argue. His high was all but gone and being drunk wasn’t even being drunk for him anymore, he was just tired. He sighed deeply, his shoulders raising and falling dramatically.

‘Fine,’ he spat.

Theo didn’t take long to return to the living room, hair wet and messy, wearing a pair of sweatpants Boris didn’t know he had and a ragged old T-shirt that must've been black once. Boris smiled, the sight of him, disheveled like that, but pulled together somehow, kicked him straight back into the Vegas days when they were practically living together and had seen Theo just out of the shower more times than he could count. He even saw Theo in the shower, scrubbed him in places he couldn’t quite reach, fought him for the place under the shower head, laughing like maniacs at absolutely nothing because they were so incredibly high, pushed him against the cold tiles, water dripping into their open mouths.

Theo stopped at the entrance of the kitchen.

‘Where’s Gyuri, did he … ?’ he pointed with his thumb at the door.

‘Yeah.’

That seemed to relax him a little bit.

‘Tea?’ he said, gesturing to the other mug on the table. He had tried to clean up a bit to make space, but it resulted in him just moving the crap from the table onto the counter all around him.

‘Thanks.’ He sat next to Boris, cradling the mug between his hands.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes.’ He took a slow, cautious sip and then another one. ‘Are you?’ Boris raised a quizzical brow at him. ‘I heard you earlier. From your room.’

‘Oh, that?’ He scoffed. ‘Ignore him, he’s … how do you say it? Blowing things out of their proportion?’

‘It certainly seemed more serious than that. What _was_ that all about anyway? Rehab? You’re in rehab now?’

Boris hesitated. ‘Yes and no.’ Theo raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed in defeat. ‘Look, it’s complicated.’

‘I’ve got time,’ he said before Boris could continue.

‘Really? How long are you here for?’ Theo didn’t answer, just shrugged and Boris could feel a smile creep up his lips. ‘Alright, then.’ He brought his own cup to his lips and then gagged. ‘_Blyad_! Fucking Gyuri.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Forgot to put sugar, that motherfucker.’

‘Boris.’ Theo knew he was trying to distract him and wasn’t buying it. He smiled, got up and started going through the cupboards, flinging them open and moving bottles and glasses aside quite noisily, hoping to drown out the sound of his own voice.

‘The thing is I thought I had it under control, always, was careful, was rationing, taking it slow. It was good for a while, I was ok, I could go without a fix for days, maybe even weeks, I thought I was safe then. Coz it was never about the drugs, you know that, it was the alcohol. Alcohol is my … ’thing’ as it were. When you people say pick your poison, vodka is mine, all day, anytime, don’t even have to think about it. Then, shit started to happen, shit didn’t happen, I was depressed, I was bored, everything was fucked, couldn’t feel anything, you know what I’m talking about, alcohol was not helping, nothing did, and believe me, Potter, I tried a lot of things, so I started shooting more and snorting more and yah, here we are, worse than ever and with no sugar, _blyad_.’ When he turned to face him again, Theo looked horrified. ‘Oh, relax, is not that bad. Am sober now! Sort of.’

‘He said you tried to kill yourself.’

That gave Boris pause. He was surprised Theo even heard that, let alone understood. He exhaled a short, half-assed laugh. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ He could feel his eyes watching him, but couldn’t bring himself to meet them, because Theo would see right through him, he would know it was exactly like that.

‘What was it like, then?’ He spoke softly and slowly, as if afraid not to scare him away from the subject, make him close off, which he knew by now, Boris was very likely to do at any given moment.

‘I OD’d,’ he said simply. ‘Almost died. He thought I did it on purpose, but it was accident.’ Theo wasn’t convinced, he saw when he looked straight into his eyes in an attempt to emphasise his point. But he looked away too soon. ‘In any case, I’m done. I told him to lock me in and let me detox on my own.’

‘That’s so stupid. Why are you making it as hard for yourself as possible? You’re literally creating a personal hell for yourself.’

He had to laugh. ’No, Potter, I just want to do it on my own is all.’

‘You know, there’s a reason actual rehab exists.’

‘Well, I find all that pathetic and unnecessary. Why pay money for rehab, when you can just lock yourself in for a month or two with a bottle of vodka and an ounce of weed and just … wait it out?’

‘It doesn’t—Boris, don’t bullshit me, you have more money than you know what to do with!’

‘Exactly, also why I am here, right now, like this. Speaking of which,’ he turned and started going through the cupboards again. ‘Here it is!’

‘Boris, no.’

‘Oh, come on, Potter. _One_ shot, to celebrate!’

‘Celebrate what, exactly?’

‘Reunion? Sobriety? Life? You need more reasons?’ He sat down.

‘Boris … I’m tired. I just want to—‘

‘No way, José! I will not hear it.’

‘I don’t drink anymore.’

Boris laughed so loudly, Theo must’ve questioned his sanity. ‘Right. I wish I had my phone right now, do you have any idea what texts you sent me? Pure nonsense! Letters that did not even connect with each other! You didn’t even form words!’

Theo looked away. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You try to tell me that you were completely sober then?’

‘Okay, let’s not get into—‘

‘Zero to drink! Blood alcohol level minus one!’

‘That’s not even—‘

‘Take a fucking shot, Potter, _i zatknis’_.’ He already had them poured and handed him a glass, which Theo reluctantly took. ‘Z_a nas s vami i khuy s nimi!_’ He clinked his glass against his, spilling some over Theo’s hand and threw it back. Theo hesitated for a moment before doing the same. Boris took pleasure in seeing him wince, this was just like old times. ‘Ahhh, Potter. Am so happy you’re here! But I have to ask, what gives?’

‘You mean how come?’ Boris waved his correction away impatiently. ‘I … I don’t know how to answer that question.’

‘_Ne piszdy_, Potter, you know. Tell me. Was it a dream? Did you dream of me?’ He couldn’t help the smug expression on his face, teasing him was just too easy, always has been.

He glared at him. ’No! Not exactly.’

Boris lit up at his words. He was watching him intently trying not to let any emotion on his face escape him while pouring him another shot, which he overfilled.

‘Drink. Liquid courage. I want to hear every embarrassing little detail.’

Theo laughed uncomfortably. ‘No way.’

‘Drink.’

He did.

‘Still no.’

‘Oh, come _on_! You can _not_ say something like that and then leave it!’

‘I didn’t say anything. You did.’

‘Let’s play that game. You know, that ask yes or no questions.’

Theo thought for a moment. ‘Who am I?’

‘Potter, are you high? You’re you.’

‘No, dumbass, the game. ‘Who am I?’, is that the one you’re talking about?’

‘Yes, maybe, I don’t know.’

‘But that one’s with cards and characters and I would have to ask _you_ something too.’

‘Okay, what do you want to know?’ Boris spoke too soon. He knew what Theo would ask him. And, in response, Theo looked pointedly at him. He sighed. ‘Alright. But we have to add shots in this, otherwise am not playing.’

‘Boris—‘

‘Every time I get something right, you drink. Deal?’

‘That’s not how—’

‘Potter, neither you or I can have this conversation sober, you have to agree.’

‘You’re already not fucking sober!’

‘And you are _too_ sober. So this is why we add vodka.’

‘Fine, but if you get something wrong, _you_ drink.’

‘That is fair.’

‘God, this is just like—,’ he started to mutter under his breath as Boris was filling their glasses again.

‘Like what?’

‘Nothing, I go first.’

‘_Nyah_, _ya eto predlo—_ oh, sorry, _I_ suggested the game, _I _start. Was it a dream?’

‘No.’

‘You have to answer true, Potter.’

‘I _told _you already it wasn’t a fucking dream!’

‘Fine, fine, I drink.’

‘Did—‘

‘I swear, if you ask me if I tried to kill myself, I will punch you in the face.’

Theo smiled. ‘Did you ever dye your hair?’

Boris paused. ‘What the fuck kind of shit question is that? You know I did, you _saw_ me.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘In Vegas? I came home with pink hair? I was dating that girl, what was her name—?’

‘Kotku.’

‘Yes! That one. God, I haven't thought about her in a while. Anyway, she did it while I was asleep. It was so shit, she got my pillow all pink and left a whole chunk of hair at the back, but it looked cool. I kept it for a week or something.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You told me you liked it.’

‘I did?’

‘Well, not to my face and not exactly with words, but you liked it.’

There was a moment of silence that passed between them almost teasingly.

‘I don’t remember,’ he finally said and looked away. Boris pursed his lips trying to hide his smile.

‘You need to ask something better, Potter, this is bullshit.’

‘I don’t know how, this isn't something I can just ask in a drinking game. And you wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.’

‘Yes I _would_! That is whole point!’

‘Fine, why did you do that?’

‘Not a yes or no question, Potter, are you stupid?’

‘DID YOU —’ he raised his voice over his—‘did you mean to—‘

'No.’ Theo made an impatient sound, rolling his eyes. ‘Not then!' he said quickly. '_That_ was accident. Maybe through some … fucking … deep, buried, unknown, subconscious bullshit thing I did mean it, but not really. If you know what I mean.’

‘Surprisingly, I do.’ Boris nodded and drank. ‘Why?’

‘My turn.’

‘Boris, this is bullshit, let’s just talk. Can we have a normal, adult conversation?’

‘Oh, now you want normal, adult conversation,’ he muttered while pouring.

‘What? What are you—‘

‘Nothing, let’s just—,’ he clinked his glass against his and threw it back.

‘Boris, what the fuck is going on?’

‘Nothing! Can we just have a good time? Drink! You’re here! After so long! Fuck all that, there’s time, right now I just want to enjoy.’

‘Why are you so closed off all of a sudden, why can’t you talk to me anymore?’

Boris raised an eyebrow. ‘Why—why can’t I … Are you fucking kidding me?’ He was trying his hardest to keep his voice calm and controlled, but the fit of rage he felt building up inside him erupted and it startled Theo a little bit when he started shouting. ’I don’t know, maybe because you left? Maybe because we had no contact at all this whole fucking year? You disappeared, Potter! Completely! And I didn’t—I had no—You left! You just left! No word from you, the whole time, you never, not _once_—and I didn’t try—I thought you didn’t want me to! I didn’t know what to say. On your birthday you were so … so … I thought you hated me. This whole time. And now you show up out of blue air like it’s nothing and ask me why I can’t talk to you? Why I don’t want to tell you shit? Fuck, Potter, you’re …’ He couldn’t continue. His whole body was tense, his jaw was clenched and he felt like he might actually hit him. Theo opened his mouth to say something, but Boris continued before he could get a word out, ‘Why _are_ you here? Why did you come?’

Theo hesitated. He seemed not to know what to say. The silence stretched on for too long and Boris knew by then that he wouldn’t get an answer. He got up with a scoff, not sure where he was going, given the fact that they were both locked in—bad time to pick a fight—just when Theo muttered something under his breath, so inaudible, he couldn’t hear it from where he was standing next to him.

‘Eh?' he cupped his ear bending down towards him. 'Say again?’

‘I…’ He was visibly struggling to get the words out. Boris was losing his patience.

‘Potter, I am warning you, this is not good time to fuck with me, spit it out.’ When Theo only looked guiltily at him, but didn’t say anything, he scoffed. What did he expect? Theo to be honest and talk about how he really felt and what he really thought? Not in the seventh parallel universe, two galaxies over. So he grabbed the bottle and circled around Theo to exit the kitchen when he finally blurted it out.

‘Okay, okay!’ He paused for a moment, then turned slowly just in time to see Theo finishing his shot, slamming the glass against the table. He rubbed his face roughly with both hands and let out a deep sigh, holding his face in his palms for a few long moments before he looked up at Boris straight in the eyes. He was struggling again, he could see, but trying desperately to hide it. ‘I missed you,’ he finally said, simply, as if it was a fact of life.

Boris let the words hang in the air for a moment, quietly savouring them, wanting nothing more than to walk over the small distance between them and yank Theo in a big, all engulfing hug, tell him how he missed him too and how glad he was to hear him say it, see him again, have him near, by his side again, how he was sorry—about everything—and how he never wanted to him to leave him again. His insides were vibrating with emotion. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Regardless, Boris was happiest he’d been in months.

Finally, he just snorted, earning an ugly look from Theo. ’And you struggled so much to tell me _that_? What is wrong with you, Potter? I miss you too! Of course! Every day! You are my best friend, why is that so hard to admit?’

‘Because—’ he sighed with his whole chest—‘I don’t know. It just is.’

Boris walked over, ‘_Tupoy, malen’kiy rebenok_, come here,’ he said, hugging him—or rather his head—from the side, laying his head on top of his, still a little bit wet, smelling of his shampoo. Theo clutched him with both arms, in an unexpected and nowadays uncharacteristic gesture, but all the same, a familiar one.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, holding on to each other, breathing in each other’s scent, but it felt like an eternity, one in which Boris almost forgot about his pain and was actually happy, content, at ease. Finally, he could breathe.

'Your light's out, by the way,' he mumbled after a while.

'What?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why do i always post in the middle of the night? oh yeah, bc these fools can't leave me be for ONE SECOND


	3. Nikogda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise not every chapter will start with a page long intro description

He hadn’t noticed it straight away when he opened the door, but as soon as he hugged him, Theo realised that Boris was _skinny_. Skinnier than how he’d left him a year before in Brussels Airport, skinnier than how he showed up in New York, skinnier probably than when he’d met him in Vegas. When he got a better look at him, under the bright kitchen lights, Theo saw that Boris was dead man walking, his face completely devoid of colour. He was drunk and not even that gave colour to his cheeks, which were so hollow, they were casting sharp shadows on his face. He looked like he hadn’t had a proper sleep in years and he smelled like he slept in the Red Light District for the past four weeks, which, Theo thought, most likely did actually happen at some point in his life. His clothes looked clean enough (but that was the thing with black clothing, one can never really tell) but he definitely had been wearing them for at least a few days for they looked slept in, the black jeans had retained the shape of his knees and the black tee was all wrinkly and, for some reason, he was wearing a cardigan, a piece of clothing Theo never thought Boris knew existed in the world, much less owned and _wore_. He didn’t exactly look ridiculous, but there was a certain amusing element to it that would’ve made Theo make fun of him any other day, but under these circumstances, only made him sadder, not quite able to tell why.

Yes, Boris looked like shit, felt like shit too, he soon found out, his apartment was a mess and it reflected the mess inside, but even so, despite how incredibly worried he instantly became upon seeing him, it was hard not to feel happy, or at least a little bit better now that he was with him. No matter how shitty Boris felt, he always made sure he shaded Theo from the ugly truth. That’s why he practically had to provoke him in order to get an honest answer out of him. Of course Theo knew that their lack of interaction primarily because of his own fault affected him and most likely damaged their friendship further, but he wanted to be sure, he wanted to see if it was as bad as he thought. And it wasn’t, actually. It was much worse.

Truth was, Theo had been thinking of visiting for a while, but he never thought he would actually do it. But when he found himself climbing the stairs to his flat after spending hours in the rain going in circles trying to find it, his heartbeats were as loud as they’ve ever been, and not because of the goddamn stairs (Boris just _had_ to get a flat on the eighth fucking floor in a building with no elevator). He fully expected Boris to shut the door in his face, chase him out of his building, chase him out of Antwerp maybe, but the relief that washed over him when he hugged him overwhelmed his whole body and his _warmth_ … his warmth was something he didn’t know he’d missed so dearly.

His apartment hadn’t changed one bit, if you chose to overlook the abundance of some empty, some half-full bottles of different kinds of alcohol that cluttered the whole of it; it was the same empty space, same empty walls, bleak modern furniture, everything black and white, everything out in the open, everything covered by a thin veil of dust, no doubt. He wasn’t quite sure what Boris meant when he said his apartment had personality, because if his apartment had been a person, it would most definitely be that sickly looking, pale skinned, shy and kind of scary looking kid in high school who had no friends, who never talked to anyone and nobody talked to him. So kind of like Boris.

He tried not to listen to Gyuri and Boris arguing in the kitchen, but they weren’t being exactly quiet, nor did Boris’ flat have the best soundproofing walls, so when he’d heard the ‘stop trying to kill yourself’ bit, all he could do was try and stop himself from crying. He saw an almost empty bottle of something on Boris’ nightstand and downed the whole of it. It burned his throat and made him gag, but he still couldn’t tell what exactly was it§ that he drank. He managed to hold it down, both the drink and his tears until the shower, where he was sure he wouldn’t be heard with the water running and allowed himself to break down, but for only a minute or two because he was interrupted by a quick intermission of jumping out, soaking wet and dripping with soapy water over the toilet seat to vomit his guts out. Then he was back to normal.

Finding something to wear that wasn’t formal, leather, silk, expensive or black proved to be a challenge, especially since the light bulb in Boris’ room decided to pop while he was in the shower. Finally, in the very depths of fucking Mordor, he found a pair of sweatpants with no moth holes in them and a T-shirt made of actual cotton. He called that a miracle and went to sit with Boris and have precisely two sips of tea before he coerced him into doing vodka shots. Again.

He should’ve known. He should’ve known it would end up like that. It had been an hour—or at least it _felt_ like it had been an hour, everything always happened so fast with Boris, Boris who didn’t own any clocks in his house, apparently, not even his oven (yes, he had an oven, but not a microwave) showed the time—since he had arrived and he was already well on his way to being drunk. There seemed to be a brief moment in which he thought he'd come down from it a little bit, but then he started drinking again.

‘I can’t believe—I can’t _fucking_ be_live _you’re here, Potter!’

Boris was way out of it by then, right on schedule.

They were sitting at the kitchen table on either side of one of the corners, with two glasses in front of them, a bottle of vodka and about five others of different kinds of alcohol, when he sat up in the middle of a very heated, emotional monologue about how happy he was to see Theo, in the middle of which, distracted, he had taken out the finest pieces of his ‘collection’ to show Theo, all very expensive, all in beautiful bottles, some ‘limited edition’, which Theo never knew was a thing when it came to alcohol: brandy, whiskey, _sambuca, _some kind of homemade alcohol that tasted like 96% rectified spirit, and a vintage absinthe from Switzerland, which he was clearly very proud to own.

‘How many more times are you going to say that?’ Theo rolled his eyes, but was smiling despite himself. ‘I think you could’ve stopped after three, but sure, let’s make it fifty, why not. Just don’t start crying again.‘

‘Potter, you are _such_ a … _blyad, kak nazyvayetsya_ … you are shitting on everything.’

‘Party pooper?’

‘Yes! You—’ he pointed a finger at him—‘are a gigantic, fucking, party pooper, Potter! And let the record show I did not cry. It was the alcohol humidifying my eyes.’

Theo laughed. ‘Whatever you say. And sit down, you’re going to knock something over.’

Boris indeed was standing, holding the bottle of vodka in one hand and a cigarette in the other, gesticulating wildly as he was speaking. His cluttered kitchen wasn’t the best place to be then, Theo was literally sitting next to a bull in a china shop.

‘I am only trying to appreciate you, Potter, and you do what? You just —’ large wave of the hand, barely missing a full, unopened bottle of expensive whiskey on the table—‘dismiss it like is nothing.’

Theo rubbed his face with a hand trying to hide his smile. ’Can you stop saying my name every single time you open your mouth?’

‘Potter, listen,’ Boris pulled his chair closer to him and sat, leaning in as if he was about to share some very classified information. Theo waited, but he seemed to have forgotten what he was about to say. ‘You need to drink more. I think you are too sober for what I am about to tell you.’

‘Oh yeah? And I think you’re too drunk to tell me anything.’

‘Nonsense! Here, have some whiskey.’

‘I don’t like whiskey.’

‘Oh, this one is good, you never tried anything like it before, believe me, Potter.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Oh, right, right, I forgot, you are fancy boy now. Not the … what’s the word? Scrawny? Scrawny little kid I met in Vegas, are you?’

‘I think we both changed quite a bit since then.’

‘Me? Not so much. You, on the other hand,’ he stubbed his cigarette out, immediately reaching for another one, ‘you changed, Potter.’ He took a long drag, lighting it. ‘You even got engaged.’

‘Yeah, and that lasted for how long?’

‘Longer than my marriage, hah!’

‘Oh, please, you’re not really still going on about that, are you?’

Boris squinted his eyes at him, taking a drag. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Boris. You can’t expect me to believe you actually married—and had kids!—with that … photoshopped fucking … GQ swimsuit model.’

‘You think I lied.’

He laughed. ’Of course I think you lied! The closest I can ever see you marrying someone is Gyuri or Myriam and only because you’d need an immigration visa in some country or something, but I think you’d have other ways of getting that.’

Boris looked at him for a moment, slightly amused, not saying anything, the smoke from his cigarette floating in a straight, continuous line to the ceiling as he was completely motionless. Theo couldn’t possibly imagine what was going on through his head at that time, but the look on his face—he’d seen that look before. He’d look at him like that just before jumping on him and tackling him to the floor, tickling him until he couldn’t breathe anymore, he’d look at him like that when he had concocted some plan that would surely get the both of them in trouble, he’d looked at him like that once, during an argument he knew he was losing, just before he grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back, but instead of getting hit like he expected, Theo, who had squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation and was laughing because he was _right!_, felt (and he thought—_convinced_ himself many times when he would think back on i—that he’d only imagined it) his breath, barely there, but _there_, just mere inches from his lips. It was one of those feelings you get when you can’t see, but you can _feel_ something is just about to touch you, that something is in dangerously close proximity to your skin, but not quite making contact.

Just as he had let him go then, moving away as if nothing had happened, so was the look gone now—in an instant.

‘Tell you what.’ The way he so abruptly broke the silence and tapped the ash from his cigarette in a nearby empty bottle, startled Theo. ‘Come to Sweden with me, I’ll show you her. And my kids. Would be good to see them, actually.’

‘You don't visit?’

‘Not lately. Been—‘ he shook his head from side to side, thinking of the right word—‘preoccupied.’

‘Yeah,’ he scoffed, ‘doing all the drugs you possibly can, apparently.’

‘Not just that! Business is bad. Yes, mostly because I did the drugs, that’s why Gyuri was so pissed off when he thought I would relapse because of you, he went through a lot because of me, poor guy, had to defend me in front of everyone—and not just that!—had to pull me out some very sticky situations, I’m talking life and death, Potter. Was bad, was really bad. That’s why I stopped, I had to stop. And I couldn’t visit like that! Have my child’s first memory of his papa looking like this? No. But anyway, I had to sort shit out, talk to people, go places, make things right before I—how do you say it?—fell off the face of the planet?’ He concluded with a short, definitive nod of the head.

‘I still don’t know what is it you do.’

‘Maybe one day I will tell you, but now—drink!’

Boris unscrewed the bottle with a flourish, sending the cap across the kitchen and poured him some whiskey over the remaining of his vodka. Theo winced at the thought of drinking that.

‘Boris, I can’t, I haven’t even eaten anything, I’ll get _fucked_.’

‘What? No. Why haven’t you? We must change that.’ He immediately got up, almost knocking back his chair, and went to the fridge, revealing that it was almost empty except for a couple of beers and three bottles of wine. He was muttering to himself in a language Theo couldn’t make out as he was browsing the shelves. ‘Alright,’ he turned around with a very pleased smile, arm behind his back, ‘for tonight’s one course meal I present you with the chef’s special—‘ he revealed a bag filled with some off-putting yellow stuff—‘grilled cheese.’

Theo snorted. ‘As _if_ you can make grilled cheese.’

‘I can! Xandra taught me,’ he smiled teasingly.

‘Then I’m not eating that. You know, I was fairly sure she would try to poison me at some point.’

Boris waved his hand dismissively, somehow producing a frying pan from one of the lower cupboards. ‘I know, I know, but I changed the recipe a little bit, now is new and improved, Boris special, you will love it.’

Theo burst out laughing. ‘Alright, then, I’d like to see that,’ he leaned over the table, resting his chin onto his hands and watched with an amused smile as Boris was fiddling with the stove, cursing under his breath, clearly not knowing how it worked. Finally, he had to get up and help the poor guy. ‘Here, let me,’ he gently pushed him aside with the back of his hand.

‘Fucking thing won’t fucking work,’ he said sullenly.

‘You just don’t know how to use it. Look, it’s easy, you hold down this button, then that one, and now you press this and set the temperature.’

‘The fuck, Potter. Since when are you _shef-povar_?’

‘Boris, this is like the most common electric stove there is.’

‘Fine, fine, so I don’t _cook_, sue me for trying to make you a _meal_!’

He laughed, letting Boris push him back to his chair. ‘Just don’t burn the house down, okay?’

‘Not as long as you’re in it.’ Theo was about to reply when he continued nonchalantly, ‘But just in case I do, I hope you’ve been practicing your parkour moves, coz it’s a long way down,’ he turned from buttering a slice of bread to flash him a wide smirk.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gyuri took my keys.’

‘He wh—wait a minute, and he locked us in?’

‘Yes!’ He barked a laugh, slapping the sandwich into the pan. ‘Isn’t he crazy?’

Theo gaped wordlessly for air. He reached for his drink, but then changed his mind, setting it down a little bit too forcefully.

‘Is this because of your DIY rehab bullshit?’

He chortled. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, that would’ve been nice to know.’

‘Shit, sorry, Potter, for not telling you months in advance—‘ he waved wildly holding a spatula, miscalculating the range of his gesture and hitting his hand against one of the open cupboards—‘OW! Fuck. Sorry for not warning you that I would be more or less forced to go sober, have my phone taken away from me and get locked inside my own apartment, I was going to say.’

Theo snorted. ’You’re talking as if this wasn’t your own fucking idea to begin with.’

‘Alright, let’s not get into—into the schematics of things, okay?’

‘I don’t even know why I came here, this is madness.’

‘Well, now you’re here and you have quite literally no escape from this place, so what now?’

‘I don’t fucking know, Boris, you tell me! What the fuck are we supposed to do locked inside your own goddamn apartment in the middle of fucking nowhere in fucking Belgium?!’

‘Same thing we’ve been doing for almost two years. Drink and be fools together,’ he reached for a nearby glass, raising it as if making a toast to Theo, not bothering to check what it was filled with before he downed it. ‘Shit!’ He coughed. ‘I thought that was vodka, this is fucking—‘ he coughed again, more violently.

‘Your toast is burning.’

‘It’s not fucking _toast_, Potter! It’s grilled cheese.’

Theo rolled his eyes and threw back his own drink, also coughing at the horrible taste. Then he laughed to himself.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Ah, I’m just trying to think of the reason why all this is happening.’

‘Does it have to have one?’

He smiled. ’There’s always a reason things are happening, Boris.’

‘And I thought I was the philosopher of this friendship.’

And right about then, he started to feel it. The drunkenness. He was going, falling, slipping away, slowly into the numbness and softness of the oh so familiar feeling that seemed to come as a package deal with Boris.

‘Why the fuck am I drunk right now.’

Boris laughed. ‘Don’t know, but surely am glad. You’re better company when drunk.’ Theo glared at him as he set a plate in front of him with a nice golden brown sandwich with melted cheese oozing from the sides. His mouth watered immediately. ‘Here, this will make you feel better.’

He took a bite and it was indeed really good, as Boris had promised. Crunchy but soft, very very hot and almost melting in Theo’s mouth.

‘This is amazing!’ He exclaimed with his mouth full. ‘How did you—why does it taste this good, what did you put in it?’

‘It’s a secret,’ he smirked, plopping down ungraciously in his chair. Theo made a pleading face of _oh, come on,_ which made him laugh. ‘I’ll tell you later. Eat.’

Theo was only half aware of Boris’ eyes watching him eat over the rim of his glass. Despite it being a weirdly big sandwich, he finished in a few bites and then leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin.

‘I don’t know if it’s because I was hungry or because I’m drunk or _what,_ but that was very, very good.’

‘Maybe I’m just good cook,’ he shrugged, pouring them both a shot of vodka, which Theo downed almost immediately.

He was already falling into old habits and he’d been there for how long again? Couldn't have been that long. This seemed all too familiar to him, the feeling overwhelming and filling his heart, chest, whole body with a sort of emotion he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. His head was suddenly spinning.

‘Are you ok, Potter? You look like you’re going to be sick.’

‘No, I'm fine, I'm fine,’ he chuckled, looking at him with droopy eyelids. Boris was smiling, but there was a certain hint of worry or concern in his eyes. ‘I think. I am just a bit drunker than I thought. Stepped over the threshold. I’m old, Boris, I can’t hold my drinks like I used to.’

‘Shut the fuck up, I’m older than you and I’m fine.’

‘You’re also an alcoholic.’

He scoffed. ‘That’s a great point you made.’ He got up and went to the sink, handing him a glass of water the next moment. ‘Drink this. Is only water,’ he said when Theo eyed him and the glass suspiciously. ‘It’ll help.’ He took the glass and had to struggle to make his hand bring it to his mouth without spilling. ‘Good boy.’ He glared at him, which Boris ignored. ‘Now let’s get you into bed.’

‘But I don’t want to go to sleep,’ he complained, sounding exactly like a child begging his parents to let him watch more TV.

‘You don’t have to, just come lie down with me.’

Theo let him catch him when he almost fell backwards on his chair in a haste to get up, then lead him towards his bedroom, an arm slung protectively over his shoulders, guiding him through the hallway that seemed to never end.

Finally, he felt his body collapse on top of a bed as soft and comfortable as he’d ever imagined. Or maybe that was his body’s way of telling him just how drunk and tired he was. Either way, he felt instantly better.

‘Alright, Potter?’ He only managed a raspy mhm in response. He shifted a bit to one side of the bed and reached up to rub a hand across his face, forgetting that he had glasses on. He took them off and threw them somewhere across the room in frustration, rolling onto his stomach, burying his face into the pillows. ‘That might not be good idea if you’re feeling sick.’

‘Right, right,’ he mumbled and, with great effort, rolled back over, sighing. He’d had his eyes closed since they left the kitchen and didn’t open them even when he felt he mattress shift next to him. His right arm shot out blindly and landed somewhere on Boris’ torso. ‘You’re here,’ he said with a hint of surprise.

‘Of course I am.’

‘Good. Don’t … Don’t go anywhere.’

‘Potter, this is _my_ house. And we’re locked in, in case you forgot.’ He wasn’t looking at him, but he knew from his tone that he was smiling. ‘I wasn’t planning to anyway,’ he added.

Silence settled between them in which Theo finally felt his whole body relax and even through closed eyes and in complete darkness, he could feel the room spinning all around him, his ears ringing with a high-pitched, repetitive sound. He felt like he was floating, the bed disappeared from under him and he stopped feeling his body. It was as if he had become an entity out of this world, disappearing from the room, up into the sky, up into the universe, losing himself. Until Boris’ voice pulled him back to earth again.

‘What happened to you, Potter?’

He opened his eyes and thought about it for a moment. ’I don’t know.’ His voice was weak and small, almost inaudible, but the room was so quiet, he knew Boris had heard him. There was no sound coming from outside either, it was as if they were compressed together in an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere; as if they were back in the Vegas desert with no neighbours or cars or even night birds to sing in the night, just complete, dull, maddening silence. They were completely alone, just him and Boris, nobody else in the world.

When New York got too crowded, when he couldn’t resurface from his thoughts, when he couldn’t sleep at night, when he would take a pill or two and those wouldn’t help either, he would lock himself up in his room, curl up into a ball into the farthest corner and imagine he was back in his dad and Xandra’s house. Alone, in silence, Popchik sleeping, TV turned off, no noise from anywhere. And then Boris would burst into the room shouting about some film he just remembered that they _had_ to watch together or yelling about a passage he had read in The Idiot that ‘opened his eyes’ and wanted to rant to Theo about. And Theo would look up as he would plop onto his bed, light a cigarette and chat enthusiastically away as they would pass the cigarette back and forth between them and his voice would the only thing he would hear. Sometimes he would sit on the floor in front of him and occasionally make him laugh by grabbing him and shaking him by the shoulders when his enthusiasm got the best of him, sometimes he would just play a song for him on his portable speakers and jump all over the room shouting the lyrics at the top of his lungs, eventually getting Theo up on his feet too, jumping along with him and shouting the lyrics back into his face, all of which was okay because they were _alone_. Just the two of them, together, in the middle of nowhere, nobody to hear them, nobody to disturb with their madness. And then Theo would open his eyes and he would be back in Welty’s room, alone and unsure if he was feeling better or worse, but at least all that noise became bearable for a while.

‘Are you happy?’

‘I—‘ The question caught him off guard. He’d asked him the same thing back in New York and the answer hadn’t changed much from then. Except for maybe one thing. ‘I think I am.’

‘You don’t seem very happy.’

He snorted, turning his head to look at him. He was on his side, arm folded under his head, looking at him with big eyes, curious and utterly black, searching his face for answers as they always did. ’Neither do you.’

‘I don’t claim to be.’

‘What happened to _you_?’

He sighed, closed his eyes for a brief moment and rolled on his back. ‘I don’t know, it seemed like I had lost … everything at some point. The purpose of my life, I guess. Nothing really matters anymore. I don’t like who I am, who I’ve become. I don’t think I ever did, actually. Realisation finally hit me, how meaningless everything is.’

Theo turned his head to look back at the ceiling, knowing all too well what Boris was talking about.

He had never struggled with this when he was younger, maybe because he was _too_ young to understand what hating oneself really was. But after his mother had died, the guilt, the blame, the replaying that day over and over and over again in his mind, all the thinking of ‘what if’s and ‘if only’s, the torturing himself and beating himself up mentally to a pulp, with all that it was hard for him not to hate himself.

For Boris, though, he could tell it was different. It wasn’t so much his own doing as it was his dad’s. He never knew it at the time, when he met him, because right off the bat Boris had become what kept him afloat in that desert, with his constant chattering and dumb jokes and life philosophies that always managed to somehow amuse and annoy him at the same time, he couldn’t even fathom back then that he could ever grow to hate himself. It was only later, years after he’d left, when he realised that all the vodka, the drugs weren’t just his idea of fun (although it always was with Boris—fun), they were both, his coping and his self-destructive mechanisms. He was punishing them, taking out his anger at his dad, at the world, at everyone he hated on himself.

And now he had no idea what the hell had happened to him, but Theo always knew rock bottom would come sooner or later for him. His addictions would destroy him, but what hurt the most was that he knew that. Boris knew it’d kill him one day and it didn’t seem to bother him too much. ‘The course of life,' he’d told him one night when they were sitting in his living room a year ago and Theo tried yet again to make him step off this ridiculous slippery slope while he still could. 'Written in the stars. Destiny, fate, whatever you want to call it, but it’s as good as done, no point in trying to change it now. Is too late.'

Was this it? Was this his worst self? Was this his rock bottom or was it yet to come? What would happen when it would catch up with him? What would happen to Theo then? It nearly did once, back in Amsterdam. What if next time around it won’t be a ‘nearly’ but a definite ‘got him’? What then? Theo was afraid of the answer. He could feel tears well up in his eyes and, before he could control them, they rolled down his temples into his hair. Soon enough, more followed and just like that, a certain panic set in. The urge to feel him again, to make sure he was still there, still breathing, still _existing _next to him, was unbearable. He reached out and patted the place next to him, his arm landing on his chest, immediately curling into a fist in the fabric of his T-shirt.

Boris chuckled quietly. ’You okay there, Potter?’

‘Yes, I just—‘ he sniffed—‘I…’

‘Are you … Are you crying?’ he asked timidly, turning to look at him.

Theo sighed and with the sleeve of his free hand wiped his face, avoiding to answer. Resting his arm over his eyes, without a word he tugged gingerly at Boris’ T-shirt. He felt Boris slowly turn on his side and shift closer to him.

‘Are you okay?’ His voice soft, barely over a whisper and so close to his ear, Theo could almost hear it inside his mind. He only managed to shake his head. He was closer now, but he wasn’t close enough, Boris was keeping his distance. He wanted—he _needed_—to feel him closer, _closer_. Theo tugged at his shirt again, gently, shyly, almost undetectably. His whole body was tense, trying to fight back tears, but it was almost painfully hard, so when Boris grabbed his wrist, pulling his arm away from his face and cupped his cheek with a cold, bony hand that sent shivers down his spine at both, the touch (the _touch!_) and the temperature of his skin on his to turn his face to look at him, Theo crumbled completely. He felt exposed, he felt naked, pathetic, like a drunken man baby, crying for no reason at all, because Boris was still very much there, obviously, but it was too late, the floodgates opened, he was crying and he felt absolutely ridiculous.

‘No no no, don’t cry, what’s wrong? Talk to me, is okay.’ But Theo couldn’t put two words together. ‘Fuck, Potter, what the hell happened?’

He sighed trying to compose himself and find his balance again. It took a minute before he felt confident enough to talk without breaking down.

‘I don’t know, I was—I was thinking of us, of how—of what you said, of hating yourself and how you tried to kill yourself, even though you say you didn’t, I don’t believe you, I thought about so many things, I just spiralled out of control and my thoughts, I couldn’t stop them, I just—I just thought about you—oh god, I can’t even say it—of you … not being here, I just had to see, make sure you’re—‘

‘Shhh shhh shhh, don’t think about that now, I’m here, I'm here, look at me.' Theo couldn't, he didn't move at all, he was paralysed. '_Look_ at me,’ he said again. Theo’s eyes were squeezed shut, but he made an effort to open them and meet Boris’. ‘I’m here,’ he smiled, bright and reassuring, ‘I’m okay, and you are too, everything is okay! Nothing to cry about. Nothing else matters. Just you and me,' he gripped his face slightly more forcefully. 'And we are together now! Everything is good, you have nothing to cry about.’ He wiped his thumb across his cheekbone, but Theo couldn’t stop crying. ‘_Oy, malen’kiy moy_,’ he wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him to his chest. Theo immediately fell into the curve of his body as if out of reflex, clutching onto his back for dear life, sobbing as quietly as he could manage into his chest. ‘_Khvatit plakat’, vse khorosho, ne plach’, dorogoy, vse khorosho. Spi, ya zsdes’. Ya ne ostavlyu tebya, nikogda,_’ he was whispering softly into his hair, caressing the back of his head. ‘_Nikogda. Nikogda,_’ he kept saying. _Never. Never_. The words echoed in Theo’s mind and soon, his tears dried and his breathing was steady, but Boris never let go; he kept him wrapped tightly in his arms, pressed against his chest, whispering soft Russian nonsense into his hair.

Theo sobbed himself to sleep in Boris’ arms that night, clutching on to him with desperate need until his tender touch and whispers made his body relax completely and his thoughts finally stopped attacking him. His last thought just before he drifted off to sleep was how relieved and how much lighter he suddenly felt, as he hadn’t felt in years; a sort of comfort, a sense of security he realised he had missed dearly. He wasn’t sure how he would feel the next morning given the amount of alcohol he’d had, but for now, he exhaled a shaky breath which felt as if it took all his worries away, nuzzled further into Boris’ chest and began floating again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol if you think that i have a PLAN for this fic or that it's actually GOING somewhere and that some big thing will happen....... ur wrong xx


	4. I Think It's Time To Shut Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said not every chapter will start with long descriptions?
> 
> yeah, about that..

Boris woke up because his bladder was exploding. He couldn’t tell with the curtains drawn if it was day or night, but he could easily tell that he was not alone in the bed. It took him a second to realise Theo was very much still curled up in his arms, soundly asleep. He looked down and wanted to take in the sight of him, savour the moment, imprint this image in his brain in as much detail as possible, but he could barely see anything from under that messy mop of hair of his; he practically buried his face into his chest and coiled around himself to fit in Boris’ arms. The only thing imprinted in his memory was the rise and fall of his shoulders and the barely audible sound of his breathing. And the feeling. The feeling of holding something—some_one_—in his arms, someone he never waned to let go of, someone he wanted to smother in his embrace, but at the same time, felt the need to touch so delicately and handle with so much care as to not break or bruise them.

He leaned down and pressed his nose on the top of his head. He felt like he could cry, his heart … ached inexplicably pleasurable, but then Theo started to shift, he wanted to roll over the other way, so Boris unfolded his arms and let Theo move to the other side of the bed, mumbling some unintelligible nonsense in his sleep. He shifted around for a while, seemingly unable to find a comfortable position, until he pulled the tangled duvet into his arms and cuddled it, his back turned to Boris. He was so far away on the other side of the bed that if Boris stretched, his whole arm’s length wouldn’t have been enough to reach him.

Cold, duvet-less and quite awake now, he sighed and got up slowly from the bed, making his way through the dark towards the bathroom. The harsh morning light in the hallway hurt his eyes and he had to walk slowly and blindly, one hand over his eyes the other outstretched in front of him, gaping, to the bathroom.

It was unusually bright and sunny that morning in Antwerp and the sunlight bounced off the white walls straight into Boris’ eyes, making his whole head ache with a constant pounding which made him feel as if his brain was trying to bust his skull open from the inside. It took all the strength he had in him to squint his eyes open and aim. He wasn’t sure if he had.

Returning to the bedroom, the darkness and stillness comforted him and engulfed him in a cool embrace. He laid down on the bed as softly as he could in order not to wake Theo, who was still hugging all the duvet, turned away facing the windows. Boris didn’t even try to claim back even a corner of his duvet, just pulled his cardigan tighter around his body and buried his face in the pillows, trying to ignore the pulsing of his brain.

He was just dozing off again when he felt Theo roll over, groan softly and mumble something Boris either didn’t hear or didn’t understand in his half asleep state.

‘Huh?’ He mumbled into the pillows.

‘I said,’ his voice was so raspy, he could barely speak. He cleared his throat, ‘I said are you awake?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Fuck.’

‘What?’ Boris turned his head so he could talk to him.

‘My head. It’s fucking splitting open.’

‘Aspirin in the first drawer to your left.’ He closed his eyes again.

He heard Theo roll over and open the bedside table. ‘Oh my god.’

‘What?’

‘This is—as _if_ you have a drawer _full_ of pills.’

‘They’re very cheap. Bought in bulk. Alcoholic’s must have.’

‘This is so fucking weird.’

‘Shut up. Aren’t you glad you don’t have to get up and look for aspirin in my cabinets now with your head like this?’

‘I guess you’re right. Water?’

‘Beer. Also there somewhere,’ he gestured vaguely with his hand.

‘No, fuck that, I want water.’

‘Hair of the dog, Potter, trust me.’

‘That's one,’ he muttered, and Boris felt him get up from the bed.

‘Huh? What was that?’

‘Nothing, nothing. _God_, I can’t even—‘ he plopped back down with all his weight—‘I feel so fucking shitty. Why on earth did I let you do this to me? I feel horrible.’ His voice sounded muffled.

‘Sorry, what?’ He opened his eyes, raising his head in an uncomfortable position to look at him. His back was facing him and he was leaning forward on his knees, holding his head in his hands. ‘Do to you?’

Theo scoffed, ‘Yes! Do to me. You’re the one who made me drink. You’re the one who always made me drink.’

‘With what, a gun to your head and a machete to your throat? Strapped you to the chair and poured the vodka down your throat against your will?’ He laughed, letting his head fall down again. ‘You drank because you wanted to.’

‘No, I drank because _you_ wanted me to.’

‘It’s fine, Potter,’ Boris groaned and rolled over, sprawling all over the bed, eyes closed again. ‘You need to let go every once in a while. Let loose.’

‘I _do_ let loose, this—this isn’t about that! I—Coming here _is_ letting loose! I can’t believe you’re telling me to ‘let loose’—’ he mocked him—‘after all the fucking drugs we’ve been taking.’

‘Which you don’t take anymore.’

‘Exactly! And isn’t that considered a good thing?’

‘Of course! And am happy for you, but you can’t act like this is just as bad, this was just a few drinks one night after years, chill out.’

‘Chill out? _Chill out?!_’

‘Yes, Potter, chill out!’ He turned his head to glare at him—Theo was starting to get pissed off, which, in turn, was pissing him off. He was sat on the edge of the bed, half turned towards Boris, his hair sticking in every direction and Boris wished he could laugh; he looked like he had spent the night in a ditch somewhere or under a bridge with a hooker who most likely gave him HIV; he looked miserable. Miserably ridiculous. But this wasn’t the time. He scoffed. ‘Since when exactly are you so concerned about a couple of drinks?’ He was laughing now, but his tone was unmistakably annoyed. ‘Weren’t you the one who was popping oxys, roxys, coke! morphine!—oh, let’s not forget the _heroin_!—and whatever the fuck else on the daily just last year? What’s wrong with you, freaking out about a little alcohol now?’

‘Because it always seems to be the norm with you!’ he threw his arms in the air. ‘You can’t _just_ hang out with someone without getting yourself _or_ _them_ fucked up, can you?’

‘Stop shouting, please. You’re not the only one here with a splitting headache.’ He could barely manage to keep his voice under control, the words came out icy and cold.

‘That’s surprising coming from you, I thought all these years of being an alcoholic would magically make your hangovers go away, no?’

‘Okay,’ he sat up suddenly, ‘what the fuck is your problem right now? Why are you so mad? What the fuck could’ve _possibly_ happened in the two minutes from when you woke up to now?’

‘I don’t know! I’m just so … I feel so … I feel so _angry_ at you for some reason, I want to fucking punch you and I don’t even know why.’

‘What can I say, right now the feeling is mutual. Also, you’re not the only one with suppressed anger here either, but do you see me shouting and throwing blame on you over stupid things that don’t even matter and have absolutely nothing to do with the real issue? No. So drink your fucking aspirin and shut the fuck up. I’m tired.’ He plopped back down on the bed.

‘Wait, hold on, you’re angry? _You’re_ angry? With me? For _what exactly_? What did _I_ do to _you_?’

Boris sat back up, enraged, incredulous at what he was hearing.

‘Are we really going back to this conversation?’

‘What conversation?’

‘Last night! I told you! I told you exactly what I was mad about, did you even listen? Did you hear a single fucking word I said to you?’

‘Of course I did, I’m actually surprised you remember having that conversation in the first place.’

‘Oh, _fuck_ you. You don’t get to lecture _me_ about forgetting shit after drinking. Remember _Dr. No_? Oh, that’s right, you don’t!’

‘Suck a dick, Boris, that was—out of all the shitty things you’ve ever done to me, and that’s a long fucking list, by the way—that is by far _the_ shittiest! Top of the list!’

‘Well then, I guess I won’t try apologise _again_ since you made it so clear it’s useless, even after I fucking got it back for you!’

‘It’s not about—‘ he stood up, gesturing towards the ceiling, palms up—‘getting it back or not, it’s about stealing it in the first place! How could you do this to me?!’

‘I was young! I was stupid! I had no idea what the fuck I was doing! _Why_—‘ he quickly added when Theo opened his mouth to say something—‘are you bringing this up again? It’s settled, let it _go _already! The painting is safe, returned and you got your money so what more do you want?’

‘I don’t _want_ anything, and don’t you _dare_ make it about the money because it isn’t and you know it. I couldn’t care less about the fucking money, you know—you _knew_—how important it was, how much it meant to me and you still fucking—God, I just … I still can’t understand why—‘ Boris groaned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed mid Theo’s sentence. The sudden light when he opened the door hit him like an axe in the head again. ‘Oh, you’re walking away?' he heard behind him. 'Of course, when you realise you’re wrong, you’d rather walk away than admit it. Where are you even going, dumbass? We’re locked in, in case you forgot, because of your oh-so-genius plan of getting sober by your-fucking-self!’

‘Shut the fuck up, Potter, I don’t need this shit right now,’ he yelled back from the hallway, slamming the bathroom door behind him. Not even a second later, it opened again.

‘And what exactly _did_ you tell me last night? Because from what I remember—and I remember quite clearly, mind you—you made little to no sense, you barely got a full sentence out.’

‘My fucking God, Potter, can you maybe wait outside so I can pee in solitude and then we can resume this ludicrous fight? Thanks.’

‘We’re not fighting, we’re conversing.’

‘Oh, this is what they called it in your family? I bet your mum and dad had a lot of _conversations _then, huh?’

‘You leave my parents out of this,’ he pointed a finger in his face, which Boris rose his eyebrows at.

‘And you leave my fucking bathroom!’

‘Fine! Nothing I haven’t—’ he slammed he door hard behind him.

Boris stood there, slightly shocked and, by the sound of it—or rather lack thereof—Theo stood just as shocked on the other side of the door. Boris didn’t move, he just listened, expecting him to come back in and apologise or cover his ass with some lame comeback, but a moment later, he heard him stomping angrily away towards the other end of the apartment.

Boris didn’t even need to pee, he just wanted to put an end to the yelling, even if was only for a little while—it wasn’t helping his state at all. This was not at all how he’d imagined his first morning with Theo would go like. He wanted to go out there and apologise himself, try and reason calmly with him instead of yelling nonsensically at each other, talk about the real problem and solve it, hug it out and have a good time, but what he craved more was a bump that would numb his senses and hopefully his headache too.

He was replaying the whole conversation in his head and it only made him madder. He leaned against the counter, but tried his best to keep his eyes fixed on his hands instead, his knuckles white from gripping he edge of the counter, his whole body shaking and he didn’t know if it was because of the withdrawal or how mad he was. Without thinking, he kicked the counter, which was a bad idea because he was barefoot. His head was swarming with noise, no voices, just noise too loud for him to make sense of; his jaw kept clenching and unclenching, his hands wouldn't stop shaking, the room was too bright and too hot, he was sweating, he took off his stupid cardigan and threw it mindlessly into a corner for the bathroom, his breathing heavy and ragged and he couldn't seem able to stop pacing and stand still for a second or not crack his knuckles over and over again or chew on his lip. He finally slid against the wall and pushed the heels of his palms deep into the sockets of his eyes. his knee wouldn't stop bouncing up and down and he wanted to scream. This was as close as he got to losing his mind, he thought. His hands made their way to the top of his head, clutching fistfuls of hair; he could feel his whole body trembling and if he pulled any harder, he would rip out his hair, so he forced himself to let go and, take a deep, shaky breath and try to relax.

It shouldn't have happened like that. The morning spun out of control too fast for him to even process what had happened and what went wrong. It was eating him alive how quick he was to lose his temper too, but it was way too easy when he was so jumpy and twitchy and irritable all the goddamn time. Theo lashing out at him—even if it was completely nonsensical—was the perfect excuse for him to let out some of his own frustration. And what was even more annoying—it made his blood boil to admit it—, Theo was right. Somewhat. He too thought that after all those years he would have developed some kind of tolerance to the mornings after, but they only got worse with age. In a very unhelpful manner, he remembered that drugs helped with that sometimes, and so did weed, which he actually _could_ get his hands on at that moment. He just needed to get out of the bathroom without crossing paths with the Scream Queen out there who kept slamming doors and drawers.

‘You don’t have milk?’ he suddenly heard him yell outraged from the kitchen, as if knowing he was about to come out.

Boris' head snapped up and he was up in an instant, but before he did or said anything, he closed his eyes and took a few deep, controlled breaths, trying to calm himself. ’No?' he shouted back. 'What do you even need milk for?’

‘Coffee?’ he yelled a second later in a tone that suggested it was an obvious fact of general knowledge the whole world and its mother knew and only he, Boris the Dumbass Idiot was too stupid to know.

‘Well, guess what, I _have_ no fucking coffee either,’ he swung the door open forcefully, stepping halfway into the hallway, ‘you’ll survive, I think.’

‘You live in a literal dump, Boris,’ he stepped into the hallway too. ‘An empty, lonely, miserable dump, where souls come to die and people too because you don’t even have food enough to feed a chicken! How can you live like this?!’

‘First of all, nobody comes here. You’re the first idiot who decided to take a vacation in the most boring town in the most boring country in all of Europe. And second of all, why are you acting so surprised all of a sudden? You were perfectly aware of this when you decided to come here without any previous fucking notice, so don’t complain now. This isn’t some five star hotel, okay? This is my flat, I live here and I’m sorry, but I had very little time to clean and go shopping for you.’

‘How many more times can I say it, I _did_ give you notice!’

‘And how many more times can _I_ say it—,' to hell with calmness—'I didn’t have my _phone_!’ Boris didn’t think he could shout any louder.

‘And how the fuck was I supposed to know that?! That you would finally listen to me and get clean? But of _course_ you wouldn’t do it the normal, _sane_ way, would you? You just had to come up with your own bullshit crackhead version of it, because regular rehab isn’t good enough, is it?’

They had both fully stepped out into the hallway and were shouting at each other from the opposite ends like complete idiots.

‘I’m glad you’re so happy for me, Potter, your support really warms my heart,’ he patted the place on his breast a little harder than he’d intended.

‘Of course I’m happy, Boris, you’re changing your life—finally—but is it really so hard to do some basic goddamn grocery shopping while you’re at it?’

‘I haven’t left the house in a fucking MONTH!’ he bellowed and, without thinking, his fist went flying into the wall so hard, it left a dent, but Theo didn’t seem fazed at all.

‘How very healthy of you, and are you proud of that achievement?’

‘What exactly screams ‘healthy’ about me, Potter, huh?’ The side of his fist was hurting, but he ignored it.

‘Oh, right, right, I forgot you’re Dominic Milton fucking Trott.’

His confusion only made him angrier. ‘Who?’ he cried.

‘Doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t get it anyway.’

‘Wow, you really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.’ Theo frowned with his entire face. ‘You know, this is just like Vegas. Whenever you would show the slightest hint of emotion or affection towards me, you would immediately shut into yourself—‘ Theo jerked his arm at him and started walking away into the living room (‘I don’t have to listen to this.’), but Boris followed, he wasn't going to let it go, it gnawed at him for far too long now—‘or literally lock yourself in your room, leaving me on the outside in both senses the word. Sometimes I would have to fight you, literally fight you just to get a single word out of you and then we would actually end up fighting! History repeating itself, look at this shit! What the fuck are we even fighting about, that I don’t have _milk_, Potter? Seriously?’

Theo stopped in the middle of the living room, facing away from Boris who was stood in the entrance. ‘This is nothing like Vegas—‘ he butt in, turning abruptly to face him—‘and this is not—‘

‘Oh, but it is!' he stepped closer. 'You would do things without thinking, that you genuinely, truly felt and then you would go completely cold the second you realised you let your guard down,’ Boris took pleasure in seeing him go red at that, that’s when he knew he had hit a spot. ‘And why? Because you were afraid! Afraid that you might God forbid actually _feel_ things,’ he wiggled his fingers into his face, which Theo immediately swatted away. ‘I could never get to the true you, not even in your drunkest hour, you were always hiding from me, even when you thought you weren’t.’

‘What are you talking about, I—‘ He was stammering, Boris could almost feel how uncomfortable he was. It fuelled him.

‘You refused to talk about anything! As soon as I would even _hint _at opening the subject, you would change it. But then you’d get drunk—‘

‘Again, your—‘

‘—start a fight over nothing in particular, then that would turn into you doing everything you wanted to do but could never let yourself do sober, then you would feel ashamed in the morning, blame it on the alcohol, never talk about it, subject closed, do it all over again the next day, for a year!’ he waved wildly the air around him.

‘Nope, nu-uh, not a year, because you started dating that girl and then you barely even talked to me, let alone saw me, and when you did finally remember my existence, it was only because Kotku did something and you had no other friends to bitch about it to. Always! Ooh, Kotku doesn’t love me anymore—‘

‘Stop fucking mocking me, I will seriously—‘

‘—Kotku is cheating on me, Kotku didn’t hold my hand, Kotku didn’t want to kiss me after I went down on her, Kotku this, Kotku that, I could never get you to shut up about her!’

‘Because it made you jealous!’

‘What?! I wasn’t—’

‘Don’t even fucking deny it,' he jammed an accusing finger in his face. 'When I would mention her name or talk about her, it was the only time I would ever see some kind of emotion in you, the only time I could get reassurance that maybe you didn’t hate me, that maybe, just _maybe_ you did care about me after all.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, I wasn’t jealous of that goth looking malnourished rat you called a girlfriend.’

‘See? See?’ He stretched his whole arm towards him. ‘You hated her, you still do! And you remember her name to this day! Yesterday you didn’t even have to think about it! In your eyes she will always be what separated us.’

‘No, Boris, you did that all on your own.’

‘Oh, please,’ he waved both his hands dismissively. ‘If anything, I tried to get closer to you. The alcohol, the drugs, that creates a bond between people that—’

‘Are you really going to advocate for drugs and how good they were for our friendship while you’re in rehab?’

‘You’re right, maybe not the best idea, but you can’t say I didn’t try to keep you close, even when I was with her. I always invited you to hang out with us.’

‘Oh right, because you were so sure I would have a great time.’

‘But I really thought you would! I wanted to spend time with you too! I wanted to … you know, kill two birds with one stone?’

‘She hated me. You know she hated me, right?’

‘She did not!’ Theo rolled his eyes, half turning away from him. ‘Okay, she wasn’t your biggest fan, but it was mutual, so I figured you can both get over it if you spent some time together. You just didn’t know each other well enough.’

‘We didn’t know each other at all.’

‘Because you didn't even try! Every time I would bring her around, you would sulk and grunt and be moody all the fucking time. You didn’t make an effort, you never even talked to her!’

‘Because you did all the talking for me!’

‘That’s not true, I was trying to give you both equal amounts of—‘

‘Are you kidding me?!' he cried. 'Every single time she would open her mouth, everything and everyone else would disappear and it was like only the two of you existed in the world. It was sickening to look at. You were smitten, no, you were _obsessed_ with her.’

‘And can you blame me?’ he exploded throwing his arms in the air, suddenly feeling like, with no walls close enough, he might actually punch Theo in the rage of the moment. ‘She actually _wanted_ to be with me and didn’t feel completely repulsed about it. It was refreshing to touch someone and not see them choke on their own vomit!’ Theo tried to get a word in, but Boris pressed on. ‘I swear, sometimes I could _see_ the disgust on your face when you would wake up in my arms and realised what we had done the night before.’

‘I was only hangover, I was genuinely sick from the—‘

‘Yes, Theo, you were sick, disgusted by what we’d done, you _hated_ yourself for it and me too, for making you do it! You actually did say that once, that I _made_ you do it, as if I fucking forced myself on you or something! Ha! But no, you wanted it as much I did and _that’s_ what you couldn’t bring yourself to admit. And this is exactly what is happening now, you wanted me last night, you _needed_ me last night, and now you’re ashamed and the only way you know how to cope with this is to be irrationally mad at me and start a stupid fight over _milk_. I’m telling you, Vegas all over again.’

He groaned, burying his face in his hands. ’Shut the fuck up about Vegas already!’

‘See? This is exactly the problem with you, you never want to talk about anything, ever! Not then, not now either.’

‘And all you ever want to do is talk! It’s like you are physically incapable of shutting up! I’m starting to think it might be a genuine illness at this point!’

‘You love running away, pretending, masking your true self for others, so much that I bet you don’t even know who you are anymore. Tell me this, do you recognise yourself when you look in the mirror? Because I sure as fuck don’t know this person.’

‘Says the guy who is a compulsive liar, who country hopped like a globe-whore all his fucking life, never spending more than a month in one place and then finally settling in the most depressing shithole he could find so he could have no choice but wallow in his own sadness, feeding his depression with alcohol and drugs and loneliness because that’s the only thing he knows how to feel properly anymore.’

‘And you know why? Because I have _one_ friend and not even he bothers to call, not even every now and again!’

‘It’s funny how you give me shit about me never wanting to talk and shutting myself in when _you’re_ the one with the communication problem now, being all secretive about that ‘accidental’—‘ overly dramatic air quotes—‘overdose like it’s some incredibly private thing I can’t know about.’

Boris laughed, ‘I was wondering when you’d get to that. And it _is_ incredibly private, I’ll have you know.’ He groaned, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. ‘I can’t be_lieve_ we’re back to this conversation when we literally talked about this last fucking night! And again, two minutes ago!’

‘What ‘talked about this’? You call that talking about it? You wouldn’t even _admit_ you tried to kill yourself!’

‘You know, you’re such a fucking hypocrite, coming here and accusing me of not telling you shit when you basically left town without a word, never called or texted, never tried to get in touch whatsoever, and acted like an asshole when I did. So fuck you for coming in here and waving your ‘best friend’ card as if I owe you something. I don’t owe you _shit_, Potter, much less an explanation after this past year.’

‘You’re calling _me_ a hypocrite? Say—' he pinched his chin as if thinking about it'—who stopped answering my calls or texts ten years ago, huh? Who promised he would come to New York and then never fucking showed up?’

‘I was fucked up then, I told you what—‘

‘Oh, yeah, busy becoming the hottest piece of shit in our school, snorting coke off my painting with your bitch and her friends at the MGM Grand? That _is_ fucked up.’

‘You know what? Maybe Gyuri was right, maybe you coming here _is_ a bad idea because, believe me, Potter, I have never wanted to shoot up a lethal dose and die! more than right now. You literally make me want to kill myself!’

‘Then knock yourself out! Oh, that’s right, you can’t, your babysitter locked us in. Well, the window’s right there,’ he gestured widely at the windows behind him.

‘You’re really telling me to go jump out of my own window? That’s funny, because,’ he huffed out a sarcastic laugh, ‘this is not at all what you were crying about last night.’

Theo straightened up, his arm falling lifelessly down his side. His voice sounded choked when he spoke. ‘I was just drunk.’

‘Right.’

‘I didn’t mean any of it.’

‘Right,’ he said again and felt his nails dig painful holes into his palms. ‘Then you know what, Potter? _You_ go jump out the window, because this is MY FUCKING HOUSE!’

‘You know what? You’ll never be happy, Boris—!’

‘Oh, did you not hear me?’ He walked around him and swung one of the windows as wide as it would open in a demonstrative gesture.

‘—Not here, not in Ukraine, or Russia, or Poland, or anywhere you go. Not even in Vegas.’

‘Are you kidding me? I would _love_ to go back to Vegas! That was happiest time of my life!’

‘Oh, really?’ He scoffed. ‘Then you must be really fucked up in there,’ he pointed a finger at his chest, ‘‘cause that was the worst time of _my_ life.’

‘I know! That’s why I tried to be there for you, help you see the world through my eyes! Yes, my life is shit, it always has been and I never denied it—you’re actually right about the feeding my depression thing—but I wanted something else for you, because I saw, I knew this would be how you would end up too had you been in Vegas all alone, especially with everything that just happened to you! I wanted to pull you out, get you to have fun, not think about life like this gigantic cow who took the biggest shit on you!’ He managed to make him snort out a laugh against his will. Boris smiled with him for a moment and then the moment was gone in an instant. ‘Stupid of me to think I actually succeeded, because you ended up just as unhappy as me.’

‘No, you did, you did, for a while,’ he was nodding too much, looking like a bubble head doll, serious now, ‘until you found someone better, more interesting and fucked up to cradle and comfort, and make see the world through your eyes.’

Boris burst out laughing, bending over and leaning on his knees from how hard he was laughing, he could barely breathe.

‘What’s so—‘

‘Oh, nobody, _nobody!_ will ever be more interesting or more fucked up than you, Potter.’

He looked confused. ‘And am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’

‘I mean,’ he continued as if Theo didn’t even speak, ‘trying to burn the house down with both of us still in it because you blame yourself for your mother’s accidental death that had nothing to do with you whatsoever? That gets top marks, impossible to beat.’

‘Fuck you,’ he turned around, walking to the kitchen, but stopped in the hallway when realised Boris was trailing after him anyway. ‘None of that mattered to you after you found Kotku.’

‘No, fuck _you_! Stupid asshole, how ignorant can you _be_?! The only reason I ever got with her in the first fucking place was because I’d had enough of your silence and your denial and-and…’ He couldn’t find his words anymore. He exhaled. ‘I _wanted_ to be with _you_, I wanted to _be_ there for you, but how the fuck do you think I felt waking up every morning to see you internally wallow in regret and self-hatred! It was as if I could almost _feel _you beat yourself up! You were making _me_ hate myself!’ he pressed his fists against his temples, his whole body shaking with emotion. He was shouting so loudly, stuff he never even explicitly thought of, let alone spoke out loud and it got him on the verge of tears. He turned away from him. ‘I wanted—I _needed_ … to feel loved too.’

Boris was at the end of his strength. He couldn’t possibly go on anymore, he wanted to sit down and was dying to catch his breath, but his chest was still too heavy. He stood there, hunched and breathless, and he felt his lip quiver despite how angry he still was. Tears escaped his eyes and he quickly wiped them away, straightening up and meeting Theo's slightly horrified gaze as best he could, but his jaw kept clenching and unclenching without him even realising it. Theo looked just as tired as Boris felt, and he had somehow managed to make him feel sorry for him with all his crying. He had that look on his face as if he was a dog watching his beloved owner walk away and leave him in the rain somewhere and, for a second, Boris thought he might apologise, but he said nothing. Boris wanted to slap it off his face.

‘But you don’t know how to do that, do you?’ Theo frowned. ‘This is why I didn’t come to New York with you,’ he waved an arm, slowly making his way back into the living room, ‘I knew it would’ve been the same shit in a different city, a city I didn’t even know. At least Vegas felt a little bit familiar, but there,’ his voice tailed off as he stopped in front of the open window and sighed, rubbing his face with both hands, ‘there I would’ve felt like a stranger, alone, in a city so cold that could make your bones freeze and so big, you felt like you were the most insignificant spec of dirt on a hobo’s shoe,’ he said to the floor. ‘And so unloved, I would’ve happily killed myself any given day.’

It was a while before Theo spoke again. ‘That’s not true.’ Boris turned around to give him a disbelieving look as he could manage. Theo was looking somewhere at his feet, but met his eyes when he turned. ‘I would’ve loved you.’

Boris couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He thought Theo was making fun of him or that he misheard, but he was being serious, he didn’t even look away, so he let the words hang in the air for a moment, waiting for him to say something else, but when he didn't, Boris scoffed, looking away. ’Yeah. Like you loved me in Vegas? Don’t kid yourself, Potter. You would’ve forgotten me. You would’ve gone to school and made new friends and hung out with your old ones, and I would’ve stayed home—where would we have even _lived,_ the both of us? Did you think about that? Who would have taken us? Do you remember how homeless I looked?—and did pretty much what I am doing now. Except in New York. At sixteen. Waiting for you to come back home and pretend with me all over again. And then you would’ve went to college, gotten a job and married your blonde or your redhead and what about me? What then?’

‘I don’t know, but I wouldn’t have just abandoned you, we would’ve figured something out!’

‘You’re delusional.’

‘And you’re a fucking pessimist. Can you like … dip your head out of your ocean of self-pity and acknowledge the possibility, just the _possibility_ that maybe life isn’t as shit as you—God, look at us, we’ve switched places.’

He snorted at the irony. ‘Yeah, so I think it’s maybe time to shut up, no?’ Boris walked towards Theo and past him into the kitchen, looking for a much needed cigarette.

He heard him laugh, short and mockingly behind him. ‘First you complain about me not talking about my feelings and now you tell me to shut up. Make up your mind maybe?’

He sighed, deep and heavy. ‘I’m _done_ talking, Potter. I think you were right all along, what is the point of talking if we’re just going around in circles anyway? Better to shut up and pretend and not talk about anything ever. Because—’ he spun around, cigarette in hand, lighter in the other—‘what good did this—‘ he waved briskly between them—‘do, huh? Are you feeling better now? Did you say what you had to say? Did you make me say what you wanted to hear? Because I really can’t entertain this anymore, I’m—,’ he let his body fall into a chair—'exhausted.' He lit his cigarette and took a long drag.

Theo opened his mouth to say something, but they both heard the lock turn and someone make a lot of noise coming inside the apartment. He spun around, just as startled as Boris. They waited, frozen, eyes locked on the entrance of the kitchen, seeing Gyuri in the hallway, cheeks red and out of breath, hands full of grocery bags.

‘What is going on here?’ He said after a moment of looking between the two of them. Then, when nobody answered, he laughed and dropped the bags to the floor, turning to close the door behind him. ‘Fighting already?’

‘Us? No, no, we’re just conversing,’ Boris replied, tapping the ash from his cigarette somewhere on the table, earning an ugly scowl and a middle finger from Theo, to which he met with an innocent smile.

‘Well, I don’t care anyway, I only came to leave you food. And say I told you so.’ He looked at Boris and smiled a toothy grin. ‘I told you so.’

Boris rolled his eyes. ‘_Spasibo, teper’ mozhesh' uyti_.’

Gyuri laughed again. ‘Nyah, _ya dumayu eto budet veselo_, _mozhet ya ostanus’_?’

‘Gyuri, now not a good time. Thank you, bye.’

‘_Ladno, ladno,_ _ya kupyl tebe_—‘

‘For the love of God, can you speak English?!’ Theo screamed, earning a surprised look from Gyuri.

‘Don’t worry, Potter, this doesn’t concern you anyway. Forgive him,’ he said to Gyuri, 'he’s feeling a bit bold today, thinks is okay to shout all of a sudden.’

He made a face at Boris. ‘_Nu ladno, ya tam tebya ostavil_—‘ with an exasperated groan, Theo threw his hands in the air and went into Boris’ room, slamming the door behind him. ‘What is up with him?’ He asked in a low voice after Theo was gone.

Boris shrugged, taking another drag. ‘Yesterday was fine, now I don’t know. Woke up, started shouting like madman, I don’t know how to calm him down, everything I say is wrong and gets him more mad, I don’t know.’

‘Maybe is better to not talk?’ He set the bags on the chairs next to Boris since the table was still cluttered with bottles and glasses of all sorts. Boris didn’t say anything. ‘Anyway, I bought cigarettes, I bought food, coffee, milk coz you ran out, everything in there, you’ll see. There’s more now that Potter is here, you can cook that thing he likes, the—‘

‘Yeah, maybe.’

Gyuri eyed him curiously and Boris looked away. He knew not to push him when he was like that. ‘Well, I can come back tomorrow if you need more things—‘

‘No, no, I think this will suffice. _Spasibo, _Gyuri.’

‘_Da ne za chto_,’ he smiled. ‘See you … day after tomorrow?’ He slapped a friendly hand on Boris’ shoulder, squeezing.

‘_Do vstrechi_,’ he managed a halfhearted smile in return.

‘_Ey_,’ he said then, face all serious again. ‘_Beregi sebya, horosho_?’ Boris only managed to nod and swallowed a knot in his throat. ‘_Horosho_,’ he said again, his smile back. And with that, he left.

When he was gone, Boris leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs, smoking his cigarette in silence, enjoying the moment of quiet and peace, watching the cloudless blue sky outside through the windows in the living room. He was feeling completely serene for once, not twitching or uneasy or restless, he almost, almost forgot the bad start of his morning, forgetting even that Theo was there, in his room, probably rehearsing whatever he had to say before Gyuri came in and interrupted his little speech. He couldn’t wait for him to realise Gyuri was gone and come back out to torment him.

Whatever Theo planned to tell him, he had decided they couldn’t go on like that. He needed to put a stop to this foul mood of his. So after he took a last drag of his cigarette, he got up and started making coffee, thinking this could be his excuse to go to him first and talk, actually _talk _this time. As he was waiting for the kettle to boil, he remembered he had another bag of weed just there on his coffee table. He immediately got up and walked to the living room, picking up the bag and gladly realising he had about five grams left. The kettle boiled, he poured the water into the French press and started rolling a joint, not bothering with tobacco. He was nearly finished when he heard a door open and let out a quiet sigh, wondering why couldn’t he have stayed there for two, just two more minutes? So he paid Theo no mind when neither when he heard his footsteps stop behind him, nor when he carefully sat on the other end couch next to him, arms between his thighs, knee bopping up and down, clearly nervous.

Neither of them said anything as Boris finished rolling the joint. He took a long first drag and leaned back on the couch feeling like a bloody genius for remembering he had this. His body instantly relaxed, his brain stopped trying to break its way out through his skull, and not even the sun bothered him as much anymore; on the contrary, he found himself actually enjoying the beautiful day! Everything was much better now, after this third drag. He exhaled and, suddenly remembering about the coffee, he passed the joint to Theo and rushed to the kitchen, returning a moment later with his cup of coffee. Theo stared up at him confused, releasing a sideways puff of smoke.

‘More vodka?’ He asked with the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

Boris scowled at him, despite his heart feeling the unmistakeable relief he had finally attempted a joke. Laughing to himself, Theo took the mug from his hand and Boris was glad to see the happiness on his face when he realised it was his much awaited milk coffee. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled almost shyly.

Boris rolled his eyes, fighting back a smile and sat down, taking the joint from Theo.

‘Um, I was smoking that.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he looked at him faking genuine shock, ‘weren’t you the one blaming me for getting you fucked up last night and about every single time we hang out just a few minutes ago?’

As soon as the words left his mouth, Boris wanted to slap himself, thinking this would send Theo back into a fit of rage, but he only sighed.

‘About that—‘

'Oh, Potter,' he waved both his hands dismissively, 'No need.’

‘No, there _is_ need, Boris.’ He turned his whole body towards him. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t know why, I can’t … I don’t know what got into me, I’m just so—‘

‘Shut up.’

Theo looked at him frowning at his interruption. ‘Boris, I’m trying to—‘

‘I know. Just forget it, ok?’

‘I'm—‘

‘Forget it,' he dragged out each syllable. 'When have we ever apologised to each other?’ Theo finally did shut up. ‘Exactly. So why start now?’ Boris smirked and handed him the joint watching him take a drag.

They sat there in silence, looking out the window and passing the joint back and forth, sinking further and further into the couch until their bodies must’ve looked like melted pudding. Boris didn’t even know if pudding could be melted, but he certainly felt like melted pudding. Thinking about pudding made him crave pudding. He doubted Gyuri brought him pudding, but maybe he did buy something sweet. He would've gone and checked, but he couldn't feel his legs and he was sure he would give up the second he tried to move. Sitting up suggested such effort, the mere thought of it exhausted him.

‘Are you high?’

Theo's voice sounded as if it came from far away, echoed off from a distant land, across oceans and deserts straight into Boris' mind. He was watching the dust from the floor float up around the room picked up by an unknown, unfelt breeze and highlighted by the rays of sunshine seeping in through the open window. His brain felt mushy and he forgot Theo had asked him a question almost as soon as he finished his sentence. It took him a moment to reply and when he opened his mouth to speak, it was so dry, he could barely get a word out. Boris had to lean sideways and take a sip of Theo’s coffee straight from his hand before he could speak. He noted in passing that it was almost good, actually, despite it having milk.

‘No, not really,' he leaned back into the couch, a bit more slanted than before. If he didn't straighten up, he would fall over Theo's shoulder.

‘Yeah, me neither.'

After a moment, he slowly turned his head to look at him at the same time Theo did as well. His eyes were half closed and his glasses were crooked on his nose. Boris reached out and slowly pushed them back. Theo didn’t even flinch, just closed his eyes peacefully. He had a lazy smile spread across his lips and he looked dreamy, like he was dreaming, like he fell asleep for a second, like he was drifting off to another world, like he fell down a rabbit hole straight into Tulgey Wood and was having tea with the Mad Hatter, completely detached from his body, from that room, from that dimension even. Boris didn't know when and where he had read Alice in Wonderland, or why his brain made that comparison in the first place, but he wished he was there with him, wherever the hell he was. It seemed like a very good place to be with Theo in that moment. He looked almost … serene. Imperceptibly, his body started to slowly slide towards him before he even realised what was happening. And then Theo's eyes slowly fluttered open and Boris froze cold, but he seemed completely unfazed by the fact that Boris was now shoulder to shoulder with him, he probably didn't even realise it, his smile never faltering.

Boris quickly composed himself, trying not to look anywhere but his eyes. ‘Should we smoke another one, then?’ he asked his voice low and hoarse.

Theo's smile widened and his eyes closed again for a second before his forehead fell slowly forward and bumped against Boris', lingering on for a moment too long. ‘Yes.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hah. so this happened...


	5. You Forgot Your Clothes On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a hot fucking mess i didn't proofread cos it's 2 am and which i'll keep changing for weeks after, i know but hey, at least i finally fucking updated right?
> 
> tw: it sucks.

‘Boris. Hey, Boris. Boris! BORIS!’

‘Yes, what, what?!’ He had dozed off without even realising it, staring into space and getting lost in his own thoughts and the soft sound of Theo’s voice, who was telling him about a debate he had overheard the guys in their class whom they called Ricky Martin and Rocky Gervais have in English on whether or not global warming was real. But just as Boris had fallen asleep then, he was falling asleep now; the light was just dim enough and his high had reached that perfect, smooth sailing point and soon enough, Theo’s voice was growing fainter and fainter, carried away by the breeze coming in through the open window. That was until Theo kicked him in the shin so hard he almost fell off the chair he was leaning back on.

They had both houses to themselves again, everyone gone to do fuck knows what fuck knows where (and neither of them giving much of a fuck about it), but they decided to stay at Boris’ that day. It was one of those perfect days when it was just hot enough not to want to leave the cool shadows of your house, so they spent the whole afternoon getting high before getting drunk later that evening.

‘Did you hear a single word I just said?’ Boris had to stiffen a yawn.

‘’Course I did.’ He hadn’t.

‘Oh yeah? What did I say, then?’

Boris paused for a second, mouth hanging slightly open, not a single thought running through his head. He stopped midway from swaying back on his chair. ‘I’m still processing it, very complicated story you told. A lot of ‘he said’s.’

Theo frowned in incredulous confusion. ’I literally just said we should probably get some food, dipshit, what is there to process?!’

‘All the choices we have!’ Boris threw his arms in the air, catching himself on the edge of the desk just in time from falling backwards in his chair.

Theo paused for a second, looking at him as if he was the dumbest person on earth, then said:

‘We live on the literal edge of the fucking desert, Boris, we don’t _have_ many options!’

Boris sulked rolling his eyes, knowing that since for months they had tried and failed because none of the delivery places actually delivered that far into the desert, this was an argument he wasn’t going to win. His stomach growled and he pulled a face.

‘I am hungry, though,’ he leaned on his knees, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.

‘I _know_.’

He glanced over at Theo and he really looked like he knew, he had that infuriating know-it-all look on his face that he often got when they were together.

‘So what now?’ Boris asked, leaning back on his chair, looking at Theo through droopy eyelids.

Theo seemed to think about it for a moment and then perked up suddenly. ‘I have leftovers from last night at my house.’

‘No way!’ Boris slapped his thighs harder than he’d intended, making his chair snap back on all fours. ‘And you didn’t say anything this whole time?!’

‘Yeah, I’ve got some wings, a couple of cocktail sausages I’m pretty sure, that disgusting vegetable rice and like one or two taquitos.’

‘Oh, I _love_ those,’ he exclaimed, lustfully, his mouth already watering. There was a pause in which Theo let him savour the moment, and just as he was about to say ‘let’s go’, Theo jumped to his feet.

‘First one to the house gets the mini taquitos,’ he yelled, bolting towards the door.

‘You’ve _got_ to stop doing that,’ Boris shouted, knocking the chair back as he rushed after him.

Emerging outside they were hit by the same suffocating, dry heat that took them both by surprise. It was late July, the peak of summer. They had completely underestimated the temperature and Boris found himself cursing the moment he decided to wear an all black outfit in the middle of summer in the fucking desert.

Breathing hard, struggling, but nonetheless smiling from ear to ear, he ran after Theo at the highest speed he could manage for those few feet up the hill and then let his legs gain all control as they caught a mind of their own and flew him past colourless, lifeless houses faster than the wind; so fast, that he was sure he would tumble over and break his neck at some point. His neck and probably two or three of his limbs. He almost did when he passed Theo, because he turned his head to yell back at him at the top of his lungs ‘another one bites the sand’ (his speed really did leave Theo engulfed in a cloud of dusty sand that slowed him down coughing). He was certain Theo yelled something back, most likely correcting him, but he was well out of earshot and just as he turned his head forward again, he saw an oncoming car almost too late. For a split second, he thought it would hit him, but it didn’t; it swerved to the left, honking continuously for a solid minute as Boris jumped onto the sidewalk, laughing at the chain of profanities the driver was shouting at him through the rolled window.

And he ran, he ran without putting in much effort, without running out of breath even, the high intensifying with each step until he had to slow down at the curb that led to Theo’s house. _That’s it_, he thought, _five more doors and I’m there_, when two things dreadfully dawned on him; one, that Theo had the keys to the house and two; that he hadn’t locked his own. His father would take pleasure in that night’s beating, seeing as he had an actual reason this time, but Boris quickly shoved that thought away.

He was taller, leaner and thus much faster, so it was no surprise that even without a head start, he got to Theo’s house before him. He was panting, incredibly out of breath, but he got there first, there was no arguing about that.

Theo wasn’t that far behind, he already had his keys out and they went in straight away. Boris, smiling gleefully and out of breath, thought that was it, the end of the race, but Theo threw open the front door and continued just as fast through the hallway to the kitchen. Boris was outraged, he quickly followed behind and stopped dead in his tracks when a second later he saw Theo shove a whole taquito into his mouth and was on his way to biting half of the second one.

Without thinking, Boris yelled the loudest, most wounded and hurtful ‘no’ he had ever heard himself yell as he rushed, arms flying, tripping over his own steps towards Theo, successfully slapping the last taquito out of his hand, sending it flying to one corner of the counter.

Theo had frozen, hand halfway up to his mouth, eyes wide, mouth full and hanging open. The surprise on his face could not have been clearer. They both stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, Theo in utter shock, Boris still trying to catch his breath, for a solid minute. Or it felt like a minute before they locked eyes for a split second and threw themselves over to the other corner of the kitchen, desperately trying to get a hold of the last remaining taquito.

Hands flew, faces were slapped and shoved, sweaty hands lost grip of random body parts and fistfuls of clothing were pulled at as the two boys, grunting in struggle and frustration, fought each other trying to grab a hold of the taquito.

‘Fuck, OFF, it’s _mine_!’

‘No! I was here first!’

‘Bull-fucking-shit, I got here before you did, you’re only here because you had the keys, which is not fucking fair!’

‘Oh, boohoo, life’s not fair, go cry to your mummy about it!’

‘My mother is fucking dead, the burrito is mine!’

‘It’s not even a burrito, dumbass!’

‘Who cares, it’s mine by _right_!’

‘What right, you have no rights, you immigrant!’

‘_Da poshel ty_!’

Their hands formed a fist gripping each other in the haste of grabbing the taquito, their eyes locking for a split second as they both realised the taquito had snapped in half in each of their hands. Immediately, both of them let go, jumping away from the other as if burned by the touch.

‘You cheated,’ he said with his mouth full, spitting some crumbs on the floor, ‘you always fucking cheat!’

‘I do not!’

Boris laughed, ‘Yeah you fucking do! You know I’d win in a fair race and your _grobanyy_ ass can’t take it, so you cheat!’__

‘I don’t need to cheat,’ Theo retorted, swallowing his half of the taquito, pushing past Boris to get to the fridge to take out the other containers of leftovers Xandra had left in there, ‘you just have slow reactions—’ ‘Slow reactions?!’— ‘I can totally outrun you fair and square.’

‘And why is it that you never let me, then?’

Theo glared at him and that was all that Boris needed to know. He smirked triumphantly and took the hot wing Theo handed him, biting lustfully into it. It was delicious, even cold. He watched Theo gulf his down and get hot sauce all around his mouth. A fleeting moment passed through his mind in which he wished he could just reach out and wipe it away, but it had come and gone almost entirely unacknowledged.

There was only one wing left. Boris had already chucked the bones of his.

‘Have it,’ he said, ‘I’m full.’ Theo raised an eyebrow at him because just then, Boris’ stomach growled loud enough for them both and Popchik in the living room to hear. ‘Serious, I’m good.’

Theo didn’t say anything, he just left the wing and moved on to the vegetable rice Boris knew he could barely stomach due to the abundance of oregano it was cooked with. He took three spoonfuls, grimaced and pushed it aside reaching for a cocktail sausage to wash it down with. Boris took one as well and hopped onto the counter.

‘Hey, does Xandra have any more of those ‘vitamins’?’ Boris asked with a full mouth and the hint of a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

Theo swallowed before answering. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. She gave me a lot of shit when she noticed we’d been going through her stash.’

‘Oh, come on, we barely touched it!’

‘Boris, half of it was gone by Christmas.’

‘Hah, I guess we did go pretty crazy on that stuff, hey.’ Theo snorted a laugh, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘But am sure we can find some more, though. If we look hard enough. You know,’ he paused to take a bite, ‘the Russians have a saying, goes something like this,’ he swallowed to clear his throat and said solemnly,_ ‘kto khochet, tot naydet_.’

Theo blinked. ‘Okay,’ he said listlessly, waiting for Boris to continue. ‘And that means?’

His face fell. ’Potter, you disappoint.’

Theo rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t be a dick and just tell me.’ Boris rose a daring eyebrow at him, but said nothing. He should know this. ’Fine, I understood _khochet_, that’s want.’ Boris nodded approvingly and let Theo think about the rest. He made a funny face when he was concentrating; frowning and pouting slightly, looking like an upset baby hippo, and those glasses, God. It was all he could do not to jump off and tackle him to the floor then and there.

‘Is that it?’ Theo didn’t say anything, looking angrily away. ‘Pathetic. I taught you better than this.’ He jumped off the counter, rubbing his hands together to get rid of the crumbs. ‘Who wants,’ he said, walking the small distance between him and Theo, coming face to face with him and stealthily sliding his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, ‘finds,’ he finished with a smile, pulling out the joint he knew Theo had in there.

‘Hey!’ Boris laughed and jumped back onto the counter, lighting it. A faint blush was still colouring Theo’s cheeks. ‘I believe you meant where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ he added matter-of-factly, but Boris swatted away the comment — whatever — too preoccupied with the joint to answer. ‘Not in the house, you never know when Xandra might be back.’

‘Fine, let’s go on the balcony, then,’ he jumped off.

‘That’s in _their_ room.’

‘My God, Potter, you are such a pussy. We’ll close the door, no smell.’ He thought it over for a moment. ‘Come on,’ he pleaded when Theo still didn’t say anything, ‘too hot to go in the garden, the balcony has shade!’

He groaned and took the joint from his hand, walking away. Boris smirked triumphantly following after him with Popchik tap-tap-tapping quickly behind them. Upstairs Theo stopped cold in front of Xandra and Larry’s bedroom as if he suddenly came to and had no idea where he was. He made no move to open the door, but before Boris could nudge him aside and open the door himself, Theo turned and said aggravated:

‘It’s locked. They keep it locked.’

‘Maybe they forgot this time,’ he reached past him and tried the door, but Theo was right; it didn’t budge an inch. ‘Well, where are the keys?’

Theo looked bewildered at him, as if he was about to slap him. ‘Do you think that if I’d known I would still be standing here like an id—‘

‘Okay, okay,’ he rose his voice to drown out his increasingly louder one, ‘I get it.’ He sighed, taking the joint from Theo and inhaling a lustful drag, ignoring his glare. ‘What are we going to do now? Fuck it,’ he said, answering his own question, ‘let’s just smoke it in your room.’

‘But then everything smells,’ he complained, trailing after Boris one door down the hall, ‘the sheets smell, the clothes smell, even the carpet and the curtains!’ Popchik yapped impatiently at their feet. ‘Even Popchik smells.’

‘Popchik always smells.’ Then, an idea came to him. ‘We should give him a bath!’

Theo gave him a look. ‘_You_ should have a bath from time to time.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ he rolled his eyes and opened the door to Theo’s room, immediately throwing himself on his bed. But he wasn’t quite comfortable, as he landed on something that was jamming him in the small of his back. With the joint hanging loosely from his lips, he reached under and his fingers curled around the neck of a much too familiar bottle.

‘And what do we have here?’

‘That’s for later,’ Theo replied, turning away from the window he had just opened as wide as it went, but Boris was already taking swigs. ‘Oh my God, stop, you’re gonna end up in a coma. Boris. Boris!’

Before he knew it, Theo was straddling him, fighting to get the bottle away from his mouth, but he had it in an iron hold. Theo did manage to pull hard enough so that he was now almost sitting up and even though he wasn’t drinking anymore, he still couldn’t take the bottle away from him. Boris filled his cheeks and pursed his lips smiling at how much Theo was struggling, his eyes were watering from holding in the laughter and he could feel vodka drip slowly from the corners of his mouth.

‘How the fuck are you so strong, you’re like a fucking twig,’ Theo then said through gritted teeth and it took one look at his red, scrunched up face for Boris to lose it; it happened before he could stop himself, coming out in a spray of lukewarm vodka right into Theo’s face. There was a brief moment of silent shock in which they were both processing what just happened before Theo let out an outraged, disgusted scream, jumping from the bed and frantically wiping his mouth with both hands. Boris could scarcely breathe. He collapsed back onto the bed, laughing in big, soundless fits, arms wrapped around his tensed up stomach.

‘You fucking asshole, you fucking asshole,’ Theo kept yelling. He threw his glasses somewhere on the floor and was now wiping his face on his T-shirt, which only made Boris laugh harder.

‘I’m crying, I’m fucking crying,’ he managed to say in a strained, high pitched voice, before another fit of laughter overcame him. Soon after, he felt Theo jump on him again. His arms instinctively flew to his head, anticipating the punch that would’ve most likely broken his nose again or left him with a pretty bruised eye, but laughing nonetheless.

‘You’re such a piece of shit, Boris!’ he yelled, delivering one last blow to the side of his head.

Before he could even say anything, Theo yanked the bottle from his hand and the next thing he knew, a shower of vodka hit him right in the face, and yet, he still couldn’t stop laughing.

‘How do you like it, huh? Motherfucker, how do you like it now?’ He stopped trying to reach the bottle and instead closed his eyes shut and opened his mouth. ‘Oh, you think you’re smart? Choke, then.’ He couldn’t see what Theo was doing, but just as he said that, some vodka went the wrong way down his throat and he began coughing violently. He tried to sit up but Theo, still pouring over him, pinned his shoulders down with his knees, a move he learned from Boris, which meant that he knew how to escape. He twisted until one of his arms broke free and managed to knock the bottle away from Theo's hand and even through the panic of choking and not being able to breathe his hand found its way to his side and pinched hard, making Theo yank away from him and he was finally able to roll over and spit out the remaining of the vodka still stuck in his throat. Just then he had time to realise that some of it went into his eyes and nose, both burning like hell, not to mention that his whole hair and at least half of his T-shirt were soaking wet and reeking of vodka. Still, when he could breathe somewhat better, he remembered what started the fight in the first place and began chuckling to himself.

‘What’s so fucking funny, dipshit?’ he heard Theo ask from somewhere behind him. He was on all fours, hunched over and laughing silently like a hyena. He peered back at him through wet strands of hair.

‘Now you need a bath as well.’

Without a word, Theo lunged at him, knocking him sideways and making him fall off the bed with a loud thud and scream that turned into another fit of laughter. Theo couldn’t hold it in any longer either and started laughing despite himself.

They sat like that, Boris lying on the floor, Theo somehow sitting on him for what seemed like an eternity, laughing and unable to move or get up until the last of the tears were wiped away and the high of the joke died down.

‘Phew, I think I grew some abs after all that,’ said Boris, lifting his shirt to check.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Theo replied, getting up, ‘the only thing you grew is _maybe_ another liver.’ Boris frowned at him from the floor. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he shook his head and then, ‘Oh no.’

‘What?’ Boris rose his head slightly, trying to follow Theo’s gaze.

‘That,’ he nodded towards the bed and Boris had to stand up too in order to see. And there it was, a puddle of darkened pink (Boris thought the colour had a stupid name like mulberry or pewter or something equally as idiotic, but it just looked pink to him, although he wouldn’t dare mention that to Theo again, for last time left him with a busted lip and almost minus a tooth) all over the pillows, the duvet and the fitted sheet. ‘Great, now I’m gonna have to wash my sheets too.’ He pulled the duvet and threw it to the floor.

‘That’s good, have you ever washed them?’ Theo gave him a look as if saying ‘who do you think I am?’ which made Boris bark out a laugh. ‘Good luck with that, then.

'You're not even going to help me?'

'Nyah, am going in the shower. You got me all wet and dirty,’ he added with a wink and playful smirk.

‘Stop _saying_ shit like that! Also, it’s _hot_ and _bothered_, dumbass!’ Theo yelled after him just as Boris turned and closed the door to his bathroom on the other side of his room. He laughed quietly to himself and then stopped cold in the middle of the plush carpet. He suddenly realised how hyperaware of his face, specifically his brows and his teeth, he was. He furrowed and rose them in turn while clenching and unclenching his teeth without even realising he was doing it. _I’m high_, a lazy smile spread across his lips at the realisation, but what he didn’t know was that he had said it out loud. He looked around the room; the light coming in through the window inside the shower cabin cast a hazy glow on everything and a ray of sun landed just at his feet, shining the dirty tops of his Converse he had stolen (Theo’s word, he thought of it more like ‘borrowed’) from Theo after Larry thought it was Theo’s birthday and bought him a new pair of shoes almost two sizes too big. Theo didn’t even say anything, he just tossed them in a corner of his room and left them there until Boris tried them on one day and never took them off. They were hideous as well, an ugly shade of muddy green Boris wasn’t particularly very fond of, and neither was Theo.

He took them off and stepped barefoot onto the carpet which felt infinitely softer than it looked, so much, that he had to force himself to step into the shower instead of lying face down on the floor for the rest of eternity. The water hit him straight in the face and he turned the handle until the water was almost scalding hot. No matter how hot it was outside, Boris could never take a cold shower, not after the disaster that was Ukraine. At least in the desert it didn’t get so unbearably cold in the winter; he hated he sun, but the cold wasn’t any easier to endure, not after constant, months-long Ukrainian snows that always reached unbelievable heights and no hot water or central heating ever, having to go out in the middle of winter to chop wood and make fires constantly. And, just like that, without any reason or warning, a memory sprung into his mind, one he didn’t even know he sill had, stored away in his brain files or wherever, the kind that flashes for just a quarter of a second in your mind and it’s gone just as instantly as it had appeared, but somehow, you got every single detail of it and knew exactly what that memory was.

One night, years back when Boris must’ve been only five or six years old and they were still living in Ukraine, the snow had gotten so bad, that they were trapped inside the house for almost two weeks. For Boris’ parents to stomach each other for two whole days without yelling and smashing plates was an accomplishment, but two weeks was more than any of them could bear, least of all Boris. The thing is, Boris’ parents were very different kinds of drunks. His dad drank for reasons only he knew, Boris thought it was a hereditary thing that got passed on to him and he couldn’t help it but also because he knew for a fact it had to do with the guilt that followed the death of his first wife he (rightfully) felt responsible for (on some rare occasions when he got drunk and wasn’t an insufferable asshole, he liked to sit down with him, tell him stories from his past life that Boris could barely believe existed before him, for it was so different, and have heart-to-heart talks with him in which he often ended up crying face down on the table in a pile of his own tears and vomit; it was on one of those nights that he confessed to Boris what had really happened to his first wife which, prior to that, Boris had thought she had simply left him). His mother, on the other hand, drank because his dad drank—there was no other way of surviving being married to a man like Boris’ father and, unlike him, she never hit Boris, on the contrary, she took all the beatings for him, wearing her cuts and bruises like badges of honour on her body.

It would always start the same; Volodimir Pavlikovsky would return home from his after-work drink at the downtown _pivnushka_ already half-drunk, when questioned about it he would say he’d had a bad day at work, same as yesterday and the day before that, then he would proceed to pour himself another _pyat’desyat_—a welcome-home drink—while Polina Pavlikovsky, who’d had a couple of drinks to brace herself for his arrival, would sit down with a helpless but nonetheless friendly air to her, grab the bottle and pour herself a miserable drink alongside him as if saying ‘I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Vova’ before going on to explain to him, as reasonably as possible, how his drinking was hurting everyone, most of all himself, which instead of calming him down only antagonised him more and he would go on rants about how Boris and his mother were ungrateful for all the hard work he was doing for them, how much he sacrificed for them to have this good life and how he deserved a wind-me-down drink after all the long hours in the mines, especially since he never asked for anything in return, which would somehow always turn into Boris doing badly in school (this was back when he cared about his grades), which would then evolve into an insane, chairs-shoved-aside, jumping-over-couches race around the house between all three of them. He wouldn’t stop until got hold of Boris (who soon enough found out he could lock himself in his room and jump out the window into the tree in front of it and make his escape before his dad broke down the door). And when he did get a hold of him, he only had time for a good shove and about three hard slaps across the face before his mother lunged herself onto his raised fist in a very unhelpful attempt to stop him (because it simply meant she would get pushed into the dresser or the desk) and Boris would get his first punch of the night.

Every night this would happen and Boris would manage to crawl under the bed, he could see from under the bed frame his parents arguing in the kitchen which always ended with his mother crying on the floor, completely unresponsive to his father’s kicks. When he would reach a point in which he was too exhausted to stand, he’d plop down onto a chair, grab the bottle and drink straight from it, muttering and talking to them but more to himself until he’d either pass out right there on the chair, or somehow make it to the couch. Neither Boris nor his mother dared move after he was done. When his snores became loud and somewhat rhythmical, she would come retrieve him from under the bed all wet faced and red eyed, stifling sobs and trying her best to smile as if everything was okay. She would hold him tight and whisper softly into his hair how they’re going to be okay—no matter what, they had each other—before tucking him in and singing him to sleep as quietly as she could a lullaby about two grey kittens.

During the snowstorm his father had gone on a steady streak of drunkenness for the whole two or so weeks they had been snowed in, but it hadn’t been all bad; at one point he had reached a level where being drunk merged with being sober creating a pleasant kind of drunk in which he almost became personable for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of drinking on his mother’s side in order to _keep_ him that way, pleasant, civil, distracted, while Boris stayed in his room reading or catching up with homework, not quite relaxed, not quite afraid either, but occasionally flinching at the sudden, loud bursts of laughter that emerged from the living room. It took three days for all the snow to melt away and on the last night, when you could finally see the pavement again, his parents were on their usual last man standing drinking marathon when suddenly, the energy in the air had shifted; there was a long silence before Boris could hear his father say something unintelligible in a low voice which sounded threatening and his heart sank; he knew in his gut something was about to happen. He put his pen down and walked stiffly to the door, cracking it open so he could see into the kitchen. His mother was sat at the table, head hanging low and his dad, his back turned to Boris, was hunched over trying to find her gaze. When she hadn’t answered to whatever he had asked her, he slammed his glass down and it smashed against the tabletop, making Boris as well as his mother flinch. He got up and started circling her like a lion circling its wounded prey before lunging at it. ‘No respect for your family,’ he kept saying and ‘ungrateful bitch’. At one point, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back sharply. He muttered something in her face too low for Boris to hear before throwing her onto the floor. She landed on her hands and knees, her long, chestnut hair falling into her face. She must’ve said something then, because his father kicked her right in the stomach.

And then something happened, she didn’t stay laying there, waiting for his kicks as usual, for the first time ever she got up, straightened her back and looked him straight in the eye (Boris assumed) when she said: ‘I would rather die than give you another child.’ And turned, walking away from Boris’ field of vision into the living room.

His father stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, eyes so wide with shock, Boris thought they might pop out of their sockets any second, before crying out and following her into the living room. As soon as he heard their last vase smash, he closed the door to his room and sat on his bed waiting for whatever was happening to come after him as well, but it never did. He heard things being thrown around and his mother shouting back, her voice a loud shrill he had never heard before, but their voices eventually died down and soon enough, all Boris could hear was his mother talking hotly without any response from his father. His curiosity got the best of him, so he cracked the door open again and even though he couldn’t see what was going on he could hear them better.

‘I was never happy with you, Vova—’ she was slurring her words—‘I don’t think there was ever a moment I loved you. You are a pathetic, sorry excuse of a man and I hope you rot in hell for what you put me through all these years.’

Boris was surprised his father was so silent, he was never one to take insults with such docility. He wondered if his father had fallen asleep or passed out, that would have been a funny sight to see; he slowly, quietly opened the door and started making his way down the hall.

‘Polina, please—’ he suddenly heard and stopped dead in his tracks, his blood freezing in his veins.

‘Don’t come near me!’ his mother shouted.

‘Okay, okay, just put the bottle down and come here, sit with me.’ He was trying to reason with her, Boris realised, his tone cautious and—scared. He stopped just at the end of the hall, peering with one eye from behind the wall. He saw his mother sitting on the windowsill, one leg over the edge, holding a bottle of vodka in one hand and the edge of the windowsill with the other. His father—with his hands raised in surrender—was inching towards her.

‘Oh, shut the fuck up. You can’t tell me what to do—‘ she took a big swig of vodka—‘You will never tell me what to do again.’ She began laughing then, throaty and full of joy as if she was in on a joke only she knew the punchline of. When she didn’t seem to stop and she almost lost her balance for a second, his father took a couple of rushed steps towards her, ‘Polina—!’

‘Don’t come near me!’ she shouted, ‘or I swear to God and whatever’s holiest up there I will jump and there’s nothing you can do or say to stop me.’

‘Polina, please, this is mad—‘

‘Don’t come near me!’ She threw the bottle of vodka and it shattered at his feet. That made him stop. He covered his face with both arms against the splatter of glass.

‘Alright. Why don’t you come down from the window and we can talk about this?’

‘You can’t talk, you are unable to talk. You think I would bring a child into this household and have you father him? You think I would do that to an innocent boy? And what would happen if I had a girl, huh? Would you treat her the same way you treat me? The same way you beat Borya every night? Take her shoes away, make her walk barefoot everywhere through the snow, starve her and lock her in her room without food or water for days? Is that the sort of parent you want to be?’

‘No, darling, I won’t, I swear I’ll change, I’ll stop drinking, I’ll stop … everything just—‘ Boris had never heard his father sound so pleading, it almost touched him. ‘I’ll change, I swear it on my mother’s grave.’

‘Oh, _screw_ your mother! And your father! Screw all your family! For all I know they’re the reason you turned into a psychopath in the first place! God—‘ she looked out the window into the night and for a moment Boris thought she was going to jump, but she held on to the curtain and nothing happened—‘I wish I’d known what you were like before I had Borya, I wish I’d known. I wish I’d known, I wish I’d known,’ she was sobbing and muttering that to herself over and over again. ‘But you hid well,’ she turned, her lip curled back in a wild, threatening snarl against her teeth, ‘You waited very patiently to show your true colours. You made me believe all your lies were true, ignore all the signs, estrange myself from my mother, my sisters, my whole family. You took my money and locked me away, you took my _life_ away from me, you … RUINED ME!’ Her screams made Boris flinch, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I WISH I HAD NEVER MET YOU,’ she bellowed at him, leaning forwards, ‘You ANIMAL! You sick, twisted son of a bitch! You miserable—‘

She stopped before she could finish her sentence, but not because the curtain snapped loose from the pole, but because she had finally noticed Boris hiding behind the corner. Their eyes locked for only a second—a second Boris had never forgotten and it was exactly that second he recalled so mysteriously now, a second in which he felt as if the whole world stopped and fell into the pit that opened in his stomach—before, in an attempt to regain her balance, Polina Pavlikovsky leaned backwards and over the edge, soundlessly disappearing with a flutter of white cotton skirts and purple polyester into the night. Boris screamed and his hand immediately flew to his mouth, but his father’s scream was louder as he rushed barefoot through the shards of glass to the window, leaning over for only a moment before turning away, face pale and livid, a horrified expression on his face. Boris turned away and ran to his room just as his father ran to the door of their apartment leaving it wide open behind him. Boris closed the door to his room, turned off all the lights and curled into a corner of his bed, shivering under the covers, trying his best to muffle his cries into the pillow just in case his father came back unexpectedly. His father never came to visit him that night. He flinched when he slammed the door shut upon returning back into the apartment, but he spent the rest of the night in the living room, crying at the top of his lungs, the sounds haunting Boris well after he had fallen asleep.

He stood there under the shower head, water pouring on his head, staring into nothing and reliving every moment of the memory for what felt like hours before Theo’s screams from the other room pulled him back to reality. Soon enough, he swung open the door, angry and breathing hard through his nose, holding one end of the duvet which was dragging on the floor behind him. He could see his whole bed was thrown apart in the other room, pillows and pillowcases all over, his mattress bare with Popchyk smelling cautiously at the stain of vodka that seeped through. Instantly, all memory of his mother vanished as quickly as it had come.

‘You—‘ idiot, Boris guessed, but whatever he was about to say died in his throat at the sight of Boris standing fully clothed in the shower. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

He stared at him for a moment, as if it wasn’t obvious what he was clearly doing. ‘Taking a shower?’

‘You forgot your clothes on.’

‘Maybe you forgot your clothes on.’

Theo squinted his eyes at him, searching his face. ‘How high are you right now?’

‘Very, I should hope, otherwise I have no good explanation for this,’ he nodded at himself, cracking up. Theo tried his best, you had to give it to him, he really tried to hold in is laughter, but the sight of Boris was too hilarious to resist. ‘You’re high too!’

‘Of course I’m high,’ he cackled, ‘we smoked two fucking joints! Oh!,’ he suddenly exclaimed, ‘which reminds me, look at this shit,’ he took a couple of steps closer, dragging the duvet into the room, showing Boris a particular patch which had a small, black rimmed hole in it. Boris pressed his lips together to refrain from laughing. ‘Don’t laugh, asshole,’ he shoved him lightly with one arm, but was smiling nonetheless, ‘Xandra is going to be so fucking pissed if she sees!’

‘Just turn it on other side, Potter,’ he snickered, throwing his head back, howling when Theo burst out laughing too.

‘Okay, seriously now,’ he said between echoes of laughter, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’

‘Try it,’ he replied, grabbing him by the forearms—eyes wide with excitement like he was about to show him Charlie’s Chocolate Factory—pulling him into the cabin before he could protest, ‘it is _amazing_.’

‘No, Boris,’ he tried to pull back, ‘let me at least take my shoes off.’ But Boris was stronger and managed to get him under the faucet.

‘Fuck, it’s hot,’ he gasped once under, but stayed put.

‘Wait,’ Boris told him with a grin.

He sat watching as Theo began visibly tripping on the downpour coming from the shower head—his face relaxed and turned slightly upwards looking like he thought he was floating into it. He cocked his head to the side, forgetting he was staring.

‘What?’

‘What?’ he asked back, startled.

‘You were staring at me weird,’ he said, taking off his T-shirt and tossing it somewhere on the floor outside the shower cabin.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he looked away and took his T-shirt off as well as his jeans while Theo did the same.

He heard him snicker quietly to himself. ’Good thing you at least remembered to take your shoes off, can’t have soaking wet shoes, no, sir!’

Boris squinted at him. ‘Are you making fun of me, Potter?’ He could see he was trying to hold back the cackle that made its way up his throat as Boris was stepping closer and closer to him, baking him into the wall.

‘Yes,’ he heard him say meekly and it was enough for him to throw himself against him, the water falling hot against his bare back as he leaned over him, palms open against the cold tiles, essentially trapping Theo between his arms. Water was dripping from his curls onto his flustered, amused face that wouldn’t stop grinning.

He leaned down slightly so that the proximity between their faces would be enough to intimidate him. ‘You forget, I think, that my father has very powerful friends. And by powerful, I’m sure you know I mean dangerous too.’

Theo eyed him cautiously for a moment, the smile faltering from his face until he raised his chin and smirked. ‘Bull, shit.’

It was hard to tell what had gotten over him in that moment, but Boris felt a certain fire come alive in his chest too powerful to ignore and he was sure he wasn’t thinking straight when his hand grabbed Theo by the back of his neck and pulled his mouth close enough for him to bite on his lower lip, hard. Theo screamed, but Boris didn’t let go, he couldn’t very well push him away, having his lip between his teeth was like having him by the balls.

‘Let go, you fucker, it _hurts_,’ he said as best he could, hissing and squirming in pain.

‘That’s the whole point,’ Boris replied smiling through gritted teeth, biting down harder, making Theo scream louder.

‘FUCK!’ He was punching him in the chest, tried to tickle him, but nothing worked. ‘You’re gonna bite it off!’

Boris let go that very instant. ’I wouldn’t do that, it looks good there.’

‘Cunt!’ he reproached him, massaging his lip with his fingers.

‘Sorry,' Boris smirked a crooked, half-assed smile, 'let me make it up to you.’

‘Whoa there,’ he said, stretching out his arm pushing Boris under the faucet, ‘from now on you’re going to have to keep a constant arm’s length distance from me, pal.’ Boris snorted, grabbed him by the wrist and yanked Theo towards him, so that they both stepped through and out of the water. He held his wrist to his side.

‘I promise I won’t hurt you again,’ he said and found himself really meaning it. Or wanting to mean it.

Theo didn’t buy it, though. ’That’s a _lie_, you can’t go a day without tripping me or shoving me or throwing—‘

Boris couldn’t hear his blabbering anymore so he just pressed his mouth to his and thought how much nicer it was to have his mouth open against his rather than talking all sorts of righteous nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> told you.
> 
> also, not sorry for making it boris' pov again, have some backstory hey


	6. Beautiful Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 4 am and i went batshit feral on this chapter, my insides are so clenched rn, you have no idea

It was still weird when it happened, but not in a way that he could explain. He would lay awake at night, thinking about it for what seemed like hours, tossing and turning in his bed until his sheets were all crumpled up and the thought more exhausted than he was. He wasn’t sure _what_ he wanted exactly, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it and the more he tried, the more frustrated with himself he got. He kept replaying the moments he remembered and his brain—infuriatingly—kept trying to fill in what he didn’t; he could tell his face was growing more and more flustered, which embarrassed him so much, that even alone, even in the dark, he found himself angrily burying his face in his pillow or pulling the duvet well over his head. He would only start drifting off to sleep at the break of dawn, no closer to an answer as to what it all meant and why he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Sometimes he tried thinking of Pippa, her dark room, the smell of medicine and stale air, her hot, almost feverish hand, her lips quickly crushing against his, but the memory of it all seemed so far away, so distant, as if it had happened a billion years ago, in another life altogether.

And what frustrated him even more was that nothing happened afterwards, ever, they never really talked about it, nobody brought it up—except Boris—it was as if it never happened in the first place. Not that he felt particularly compelled to have that conversation to begin with, hell, he was this close to beating Boris to a pulp the first time he tried talking to him about it, but afterwards he realised it would have been nice to shed some light on the whole situation, preferably without it being awkward. But that would be impossible, he knew. Boris was the one who seemed unaware of the fact.

The day after it had happened first, after waking up way too early in the morning wrapped in Boris’ arms on the floor, legs tangled together in the midst of empty beer cans and vodka bottles, potato crisps and cheese puffs crushed into the carpet, it took him a while to realise what had happened. Still, he thought he had dreamt it. But when he rolled away from his embrace and took one look at Boris’ neck, the undeniable fact that it _had_ happened was right there, in a big red and purple collection of broken capillaries just below his ear where Theo—it was all coming back to him now—, not knowing what to do with himself and everything he was suddenly feeling, dug his teeth deep into the flesh of his neck and sucked. He felt a knot form in his throat, which he tried swallowing, but it only choked him more, until he felt it all come back and he had to make a run for the bathroom, his body collapsing violently over the toilet seat. His retches must have been so loud, they woke Boris, because he soon heard his raspy, sleepy voice next to him.

‘Are you ok?’

Theo peered at him through sweaty strands of hair. He was leaning against the doorframe, lazily rubbing his eye, jeans unbuttoned and hanging low on his hips, his pale torso exposed, displaying all his ‘battle scars’ as he called them and more hickeys. Even though his hair was a mess, the dirt making it stick up in all directions retaining the form it had taken during sleep, it kind of suited him. Theo convulsed violently turning sharply away.

‘I’m fine,’ he mumbled with his head down the toilet.

Boris snorted. ‘You definitely don’t sound fine.’

‘I’m fine!’ he said again louder, more sternly.

‘Do you want some water maybe?’

‘I want you to leave.’

Instead, he heard Boris’ footsteps approach and stop right next to him, but as he saw out the corner of his eye, he was turned away, facing the sink.

‘Sheesh, won’t you look at that. My dad will think I got mauled by a bear,’ he chortled and Theo made a retching sound, but nothing came out. ‘You really went to town on my neck, huh? What’s this, blood?’

‘Okay, out!’ Theo pushed himself up, ignoring the instant wave of nausea that overcame him and hauled Boris towards the door, ‘Get the _fuck,_ out!’ He gave him one last push and slammed the door hard behind him, locking it. He stood there, forehead pressed against the door, eyes shut, listening to Boris stand motionless just on the other side for a moment or two before walking away. He sighed and straightened up, reeling slightly, waiting to see if he could make it to the sink. He turned slowly and with small, cautious steps, stopped in front of the mirror and leaned against the marble countertop. He was afraid of looking up, so instead, he bent over carefully and pressed his mouth to the faucet, drinking in small at first, then gradually bigger sips. The cold water seemed to rush to his brain and wire it with life, as if waking it from a deep, numbing sleep. It felt as if it was buzzing inside his skull, pulsing. He washed his bloodied hand he forgot he had cut the night before and splashed some water on his face, then ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back as he straightened up and looked in the mirror.

Much to his horror he saw that he had a matching hickey on his shoulder, just below the side of his neck where the skin was softest; not nearly as big as Boris’, but still fucking _big_, big enough to notice even with a T-shirt on, and as if that wasn’t enough—trails of dried blood all over his neck and down his chest where there was another hickey, a harsher one on his left breastplate. He stared at it, the mess that was his body, mouth hanging slightly open as his vision began to get blurry and, before long, he was sobbing an ugly, snotty cry, his whole body shaking and it seemed like there was nothing he could do to stop. Looking at it made him angrier, but he couldn’t look away. It made his whole body tremble with rage and something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint; he wanted to punch the mirror and watch it shatter just so it wouldn’t be _there_, right in front of him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look away. He brought his hand to his neck and rubbed his hand against it, slowly but hard enough to make the whole area red. It just looked bigger. He rubbed harder, faster, started scratching at it in a mindless, irrational attempt to make it vanish, but he only managed to make it hurt more.

Finally, he stepped away from the mirror, chest rising and falling in shaky breaths, to assess the damage—the big red patch of irritated skin with an even redder core—, but only for a moment before his entire body shivered violently and he threw himself over the toilet to vomit so much bitter, clear liquid, that he didn’t even have time to take a breath in between each wave. He couldn’t tell if he was crying from before or because his body was so tensed and contracted. He waited, spitting out thick balls of saliva, resting his forehead against his arm draped across the toilet seat. A chill ran down his spine despite his whole body being sticky and covered in sweat; he felt more disgusting then he’d ever felt before.

When it seemed like it had died down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand but stayed put over the toilet seat, crying miserable tears and not daring stand up for fear that if he did, the whole world would spin around in his stomach and force itself out again. This was unarguably the lowest point of his life. He wondered with dread what would his mother think if she saw him now, if she found out all the things he did and said and saw the person he became. It wasn’t hard to picture the look she would give him, sad, stern, disappointed, kind of like when Mr Beeman called and told her about the cigarettes. Those fucking cigarettes. He couldn’t believe he himself was smoking now (amongst other, more deplorable things), it was as if he became a walking, talking, breathing defiance to his mum’s memory. He didn’t think the self-hatred could have room to get any stronger.

With a sigh of exhaustion, Theo spat some excess saliva one last time, flushed the toilet and carefully pushed himself up, deciding it was time to lay down, but the thought of making it all the way up to his room seemed impossible to do, especially since, when he opened the door, he saw the living room was fully engulfed in sunlight coming in through the glass doors leading to the patio. He decided the couch was as good a place as any and, with eyes half shut against the light which was making this infinitely harder since he could already barely see without his glasses, he made his way like an invalid towards the couch, only to find Boris plopped on it, one arm dangling lazily over the edge, the other folded under his head. Theo didn’t even make a sound, although he wanted to, he wanted to groan from the very pit of his core as loudly as he could because for _once_ in his _fucking _life, he wished Boris would just get up and leave him alone for a couple of hours, but of course he wouldn’t, and just when he turned to leave, Boris’ eyes suddenly shot open, wide, black and alert, staring straight into his, sending Theo’s heart somersaulting in his stomach. They both froze for a second, staring at each other without blinking.

‘I want to—I want to lay down,’ he finally said, having to start the sentence again because of how dry his throat was.

Boris eyed him curiously for a moment longer, studying his face before sitting up and making room for Theo on the couch. He went around it and sat on its other end, staring intensely at the mess on the floor right before him, thinking with dread that he would have to clean that up later in case Xandra or his dad came home and avoiding Boris’ gaze that was burning holes in his side profile at all costs.

‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked after a moment, quietly, almost shyly. Theo had never heard that tone from him before. When he didn’t say anything, Boris just got up and disappeared somewhere in the other side of the house, leaving room for Theo to lay down just as the living room was starting to spin all around him and his mouth started salivating, bleak and bitter tasting. He closed his eyes and draped an arm over his eyes against the sunlight that was making his head hurt. The living room was silent except for the faint sounds of whatever Boris was doing in the kitchen. He didn’t even have time to drift off to sleep when he heard quiet steps in the living room and the unsettling feeling of someone else’s presence in the room, but not just in the room, looming over him and when he opened his eyes, he nearly shat himself because Boris was sat cross legged on the floor right next to him, head only a few inches away, looking at him again with those curious, concerned eyes which only pissed him off more.

‘What the f-f-_fuck_?!’

‘Sorry,’ he flinched away as well, ‘was only trying to see if you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you.’

What was his problem? Why was he acting like that around him, suddenly walking on eggshells? Boris would never just wait for him to wake up, he would _wake _him up and in the rudest, most brutal way he could possibly think of. This was downright outrageous and Theo couldn't understand what the fuss was all about, he was _fine_, didn't he say so?

‘I _wasn’t_ thanks to your creepy ass.’ Boris didn’t reply, his silence starting to make Theo feel bad for snapping, but it was as if he couldn’t help it. ‘What do you want?’

‘I brought you some water.’

The way in which he said it made Theo want to grab the glass and throw it in his face, then say he didn't want it, but that would’ve been a lie, so he propped himself up on an elbow and grabbed it awkwardly from the bottom so that their hands wouldn’t touch. As he gulped it down, some of the water dripped from the sides of his mouth on his chin and went all the way down his neck. He set the glass somewhere on the floor, lying back down determined to sleep, hoping Boris would take the hint.

‘Can we talk?’

‘No,’ he said a bit too quickly.

‘About last night.’

‘Nothing happened last night.’

‘Okay, but something clearly did.’

‘I don’t want to fucking _talk _about it!’

‘But—‘

‘Boris! Shut the fuck up before I sock you in the mouth.’

‘Listen, just hear me out—‘ Theo gathered all his remaining strength and delivered a full blow punch into his face, sending his head backwards as his whole upper body lost its balance and landed on his elbow. There was a moment of shocked pause in which nobody moved or said anything, then Boris brought a hand to his face and when it felt the blood gathering in his nostrils he scoffed listlessly, peering down at Theo through his long, dark eyelashes. He wiped his bloodied hand on his jeans, running his tongue over his upper lip before getting up, grabbing the first T-shirt he saw lying around (Theo’s) and walking out the front door without as much as a glance back.

Theo felt like crying again, because of the pain in his hand or how angry at Boris he still was, he didn’t know, but he sure felt like running after him just to bash his head against the pavement. He spent the rest of the day moping around on the couch and occasionally the floor until he felt well enough to start cleaning up after themselves. Him and Boris didn’t talk again until the next day, when Boris came over to show him an old DVD he found in his room, _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_, ‘best thing Germans ever did’, he’d said, barging in yelling from the hallway, catching Theo reading one of his dad’s horoscope books out of sheer boredom in front of the TV with the sound off. By then, his anger had dissipated. One good thing about Boris was that even if he couldn’t take a hint straight away, he knew it was better to give Theo a lot of space in moments like those. The matter on hand wasn’t bought up until after they were halfway through the film, when Theo, without looking at him, asked Boris in half a voice if he knew how to get rid of the hickey.

‘Sure,’ he replied after a brief moment in a strangled voice which Theo could tell was straining to mask his amusement.

‘Shut up,’ he shoved him, but an annoyed smile he was trying his hardest to fight back still tugged at his lips, which only made Boris cackle harder. ‘This is not funny, Xandra and my dad might be back today.’

‘You can barely see it, Potter, have you seen _mine_?’

‘You can absolutely see it! And your dad won’t care anyway.’

‘Wrong, he just won’t notice because he’s gone again, and even if he wasn't, I’d tell him it was some girl at school. He will clap my back and congratulate me, he really couldn’t give any more fucks.’

‘Any less fucks.’

‘Eh?’

‘He couldn’t give any less fucks.’

‘That makes no sense, he can’t give more fucks because he has no fucks left to give anymore, do you even understand English, Potter?’

‘Yes, so it’s impossible for him to give—’ but Boris waved his hand accompanied by his usual _tsk_ sound and jumped to his feet, walking towards the kitchen, making Theo realise he would have a better chance trying to get Popchyk to understand.

‘We need ice.’

‘There’s some frozen beans somewhere in there.’

‘No, actual ice cubes.’

‘I don’t think—‘

‘This will do,’ he said and Theo saw him hold what looked like a weird blue bag.

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know, looks like eye mask,’ he lifted it and put it over his eyes and, indeed, it looked like an ugly, blue eye mask, but with holes for eyes cut out.

Theo snorted. ‘Why the fuck is it blue? And in the freezer?’

‘I don’t know,’ Boris threw it, aiming at his head most likely, but Theo caught it, ‘it has something inside. Some kind of—‘

‘Gel,’ Theo finished, squeezing the thing between his fingers. ‘I think it’s Xandra’s.’

‘No, Potter, I think it’s your dad’s.’ Theo almost contradicted him but then saw he was being sarcastic. ‘Alright, now I need comb.’

‘A comb?’

‘Or hair brush, whatever.’

‘Check the bathroom. What for?’ he called after him. Boris emerged a second later holding a pink plastic hair brush and a towel. ‘A towel? What the fuck are you going to do, give me a spa treatment?’

'You wish.' He plopped down next to him on the floor and squinted at his neck. ‘Potter, you can’t even fucking see it.’

‘You can see it _enough_. My dad will definitely notice and then the questions are never going to end, because he knows I only have—‘

‘Fine, fine,’ he held up a hand to silence him and proceeded to wrap the eye mask into the towel and pressed it against Theo‘s neck over the hickey, instructing him to keep it there.

‘How long for?’

He shrugged, his attention already back to the TV. ‘A while.’

‘How long a while?’

‘Shh, shh, this is a good part.’ Theo sighed and watched Cesare drop Jane on the ground and run away as an angry mob chased after him. ‘See? He didn’t want to hurt her.’ Theo wanted to say something, but he cut him off, hitting him in the arm: ‘Look, look!’

‘I’m looking, I’m looking!’ Cesare seemed to fall off the construction he was stood on that was meant to be the path he was following and die. ‘And? Is this supposed to be some kind of plot twist? The fact that the guy dies in the middle of the film?’ Boris turned his head to give him a very unamused look. Theo chuckled, ‘What?’

‘Sometimes I wonder why I even bother showing you these things, you don’t understand shit about shit.’

‘Yes, I do! I just don’t think—‘

‘_Da, da, duraká uchít'—chto gorbatogo lechit_.’

Theo stared at him in utter confusion. ‘What?!’

Boris only laughed. ‘Nothing, is it melted yet?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Eh, you can start combing now.’

‘Combing?’

Boris rolled his eyes and grabbed the hair brush with one hand and reached for Theo’s neck with the other, but Theo flinched back, slapping his hand away. Boris scoffed. ‘You can relax, Potter, is not going to hurt.’ But that wasn’t why Theo was worried. He stood motionless and stiff as a log, looking everywhere but at Boris’ face five centimetres away from his, as he dragged the brush gently over the hickey a few times. ‘Like that,’ he said softly and moved away, handing Theo the brush, his attention all on the film again. ‘Keep doing that, then put the ice on, and so back and forth.’

Theo pursed his lips together and did exactly what Boris did, trying not to think too much about what would happen once the film ended. He irrationally thought that was the only thing Boris wanted to do anymore, but he shouldn’t have worried. After the film, they went up to his room and listened to music on his speakers while sat on opposite ends of his bed, talking about everything and nothing until Xandra came home and yelled at them to turn it down through the closed door. It was lucky she didn’t try to come in, for Theo’s hickey (even more so Boris’) was still very much visible.

‘I heard you can also put toothpaste on it.’

Theo gave him a look. ’Even _I_ can tell that’s not gonna work.’

He shrugged, ‘Next time I won’t suck so hard, then.’

Theo wanted to kill him, especially since he had that teasing, wannabe sexy smirk on that was meant to annoy him and it very much succeeded. He kicked him off the bed thinking there was never going to be a next time.

It happened again about two months later, in February or so, when they’d skipped school on Thursday and Friday for no particular reason other than to prolong their weekend, which of course meant they hardly had a sober moment the entire four days. It also meant he hadn’t seen either Xandra or his dad the entire time and, judging by the lack of calls to Boris’ house, they didn’t miss him either. It was entirely possible they hadn’t even been home as it often happened during weekends, but it mattered none, Theo was too drunk to care anyway.

They’d turned the heating up as high as it would go (despite Theo’s warnings that Boris’ dad might have a thing or two to say about that) and forgot about it the drunker they got. It became so hot at one point, they were sweating more than during summer and yet, they were unable to figure out why. They ended up gradually ditching their clothes when Boris tried to teach Theo how to play _Durak _with his beat up, falling apart deck of cards that looked like it had once belonged to Mr Pavlikovsky when he was a child, and the Mr Pavlikovsky before him, a deck of cards so old, it didn’t even have twos or Jokers. Loser had to take a shot, as it was often the rule of all their games, but the loser was always Theo and they were both drinking and taking off pieces of clothing as they went anyway, so there was little point to the game other than for Boris to make fun of him.

‘You really are _durak_, Potter, _ya nichego ne mogu tebya nauchit’_!’

‘Stop it.’

‘_Tupoy amerikanets_,’ he rapped him lightly on the side of his head with his knuckles as he often did, but Theo swatted his hand away. ‘You need to go to school more.’

‘It was your idea to stop going,’ he jumped up to his feet, removing his jeans. ‘And I doubt that would help me with card playing anyway.’

He made a humming sound. ’You’re right. Maybe there is no hope for you. This is easiest card game _ever_, how can I teach you _belot _if you don’t even know how to play _durak_?’

‘Who said I _want_ to learn bee-lot?’

He laughed, reaching for the pack of cigarettes they were sharing, ‘Not bee-lot, Potter,’ he lit one and passed it to him, ‘_belot_. All one word, accent on ‘o’._ Belot_.’ He lit another one for himself.

‘Bée-lot,’ Theo plopped back down, cross legged in nothing but his underwear.

‘Open your mouth.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You have to open your mouth more when you say ‘be’, it’s not ‘bee’, it’s ‘be’, short, wide, down, I don't fucking know.’

'What are you even—,' he chuckled, but Boris cut him off, not in the mood.

'I don't know, just look at my mouth, repeat after me, 'be'.'

‘Bee.’

‘Be.’

‘Bee.’

‘Be!’

‘Bee!’

‘Stupid!' He whacked him on the side of his head. 'You sound like the sheeps!’ He suddenly grabbed his jaw with one hand and the top of his head with the other, the cigarette clasped tightly between his teeth. ‘Be, be,’ he pulled his jaw down as he was repeating the word through gritted teeth, ‘repeat!’ But Theo could barely stop giggling at how frustrated and determined he was, let alone repeat after him. ‘_Idiot! Eto dlya novichkov, kak eto tebe tak tyazhelo, ya ne ponimayu_?!’ he yelled into his face, making Theo burst out laughing so hard, he tumbled backwards. ‘You are fucking with me,’ he said, watching him roll on the floor.

‘No!’

‘You are. You are! _Ah, ty zh tvar’_!’ He threw himself on top of him and jammed his fingers hard in his sides, wiggling them wildly. ‘You think it’s funny your stupid mouth can’t open properly? You like being ignorant piece of shit?’

‘Boris, stop it,’ he barely managed to choke out between laughters, ‘stop, I’ll burn you!’

‘You stupid Americans always steal cultures, why not steal all the way? Learn the language, learn pronunciation, become one with stolen culture, no?’

‘Okay,’ he said, concluding, but Boris didn’t stop, ‘okay, okay, enough! It’s not even that serious!’

‘Oh, it’s very serious, Potter,’ he pushed himself off of Theo and took the cigarette from between his teeth. ‘Have you seen how many white girls on the Strip dress like they Chinese girls in national costumes and shit to attract the tourists and fetishists? Ridiculous,’ he took a lustful drag, looking out to the horizon as if very concerned about the matter at hand. Theo watched him amused, but didn’t say anything, afraid it might trigger another rage-against-the-system-and-towards-all-people-but-especially-Americans rant he was always trying to avoid when drinking with Boris. ‘Anyway,’ he said after a minute or so in deep thought, shaking his head as if snapping out of a trance and ashing his cigarette in the open bag of crisps next to him, ‘you lost, again, what a surprise,’ he mocked while pouring, ‘take a shot.’

He had his legs sprawled out in front if him and crossed at the ankles, leaning back on his arm as if he was at the beach, handing him a glass with about a triple if not a quadruple shot of vodka with his cigarette holding hand. Theo eyed it with slight disgust and groaned, sitting up to reach over his lap and ash his own cigarette in the bag, ignoring the glass Boris was handing him.

‘No,’ he said simply with a fleeting, side glance at him.

‘I will not hear it.’

‘Oh, come on, you’re not playing fair, you knew the game already.’

‘Nobody said anything about fair, Potter,’ he smiled, crooked and mischievous as he did whenever he knew he had the upper hand on him.

He pulled a face but took the glass anyway. Boris clinked his against Theo’s and drank with him. ‘You’re turning me into an alcoholic,’ he said, the burning in his throat distorting his voice.

‘Wrong, I am simply teaching you to hold your drink.’ He took a drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke upwards with the shadow of a teasing smile on his lips. ‘I must say, you are not doing very good job so far.’

‘What do you mean? I can hold my drinks just fine.’

‘Oh sure, sure,’ he leaned in, staring straight into his eyes, ‘doctor no.’

‘Why do you keep calling me that?’ Theo threw his hands up in the air in a dramatic, exasperated gesture he picked up from Boris, who laughed, probably recognising himself.

‘Don’t know,’ he shrugged, looking away, his lip between his teeth and a look on his face as if he knew something Theo didn’t. ‘Your first response to everything is usually no, is funny.’

‘You know, there’s a film called _Dr. No._ I have it at my house, I’ll show you sometime, I think you’ll—’ Boris howled with laughter—‘really like it. What, why are you—‘

‘Okay, Potter,’ he reached for the bottle and poured them more vodka, still grinning. ‘We can do that. _If_—‘ he quickly added when Theo perked up, but didn’t say anything else.

‘If?’ he urged.

‘I’m thinking.’ Theo waited. Boris froze with the bottle halfway in the air, squinting at something on the wall behind his head. ‘What do I want from you? Can you remind me?’

Theo grinned, ‘What was that about me not being able to hold my drinks?’

‘_Da poshel ty_. This is not even about holding drinks or no, this is about long term memory which—‘

‘You don’t have, got it. But even if I did know,’ he said before Boris could protest, ‘which I don’t, but believe me, I wish I did, I most certainly wouldn’t remind you, do you think I’m stupid?’

Boris’ face contorted into a wide, Joker-esque, almost scary looking smile. He leaned in on his elbow and said: ‘_Imenno_,’ chopping the word into syllables.

‘Stop it,’ Theo dragged out, unfazed by his act.

‘Sorry,’ he shook his head and rolled over on his stomach, ’sorry, I can’t help it—easier to speak Russian.’

Then, Theo did what he would only attempt on very rare occasions, when he was just intoxicated enough, for it was so embarrassing and hard for him to do. He gathered all his remaining wits and sobriety trying to put together a sentence and then finally, with much difficulty and most likely butchering the words beyond any recognition in the worst accent ever, he said: ‘_Ya ponimayu no ne sil’no_.’

Boris gaped at him with wide eyes and a concerned frown before he shook his head quickly as if he still couldn't believe what just happened. ‘Was that your trying to speak Russian?' He snorted out a laugh, 'Fuck, you scared me for a second there, Potter! You looked like you were having stroke or something!' 

‘Fuck you, I tried my best,’ he shoved him very lightly, but he still drunkenly, slowly fell to the side with a thud, laughing soundlessly like a hyena.

‘That you did.’

Theo kicked him in the ribs. ‘Shut up.’ But he wouldn’t, so he leaned back to grab a cushion from the single piece of furniture in Boris’ living room, an old armchair neither of them ever sat on because it looked like it had a nest of moths living inside it, and tossed it at his face, missing by—quite a lot—, which Boris immediately grabbed before it recoiled from him and tossed back at Theo, except he aimed better and it hit Theo right in the side of his face, kicking his glasses off the bridge of his nose, distracting him long enough for Boris to grab his ankle and pull sharply. Theo slid with a yelp and had no time to catch himself, so his head hit the floor and his elbows and back both got carpet burns. He wasn’t sure which hurt more, but Boris’ laughter suggested he couldn’t care less. So he put his hands on either side of his head before he could realise what was going on and pulled, much less successfully, but enough judging by his shrill of pain.

‘Feels nice, doesn’t it?’

‘Arsehole!’ He bellowed, rolling over on all fours and Theo knew it was over then. Still, he backed away, laughing nervously.

‘Don’t even try, you started it!’ he yelled, but Boris seemed not to hear. He eventually hit the foot of the armchair and Boris lunged at him, climbing onto his lap. Whatever it was that he wanted to do, Theo tried to combat by waving his arms wildly between them, slapping his away, which were coming in from every direction. They were both laughing like maniacs, naked down to their underwear, drunk on the floor in the middle of a very empty living room. _It can’t get more ridiculous than that_, Theo thought in a brief moment of consciousness as the fit of laughter overwhelmed them both and neither of them could move anymore. Theo caught Boris’ arms at the wrists and was supporting him as his body was bent over him, mouth open wide in silent laughter.

‘I wish you could see just how fucking ridiculous you look right now,’ he said and it made his silent laughter turn into a loud, ear-piercing bark of a laugh. He threw his head back, howling, his Adam’s apple moving wildly up and down. When he came back, his face was flushed red and there were tears in his eyes. Theo was still holding his wrists.

‘Potter, you are going to kill me, you will make my heart stop one day and I will die.’

‘If only that were possible, I think you’ll be one of those annoying dead people whose ghost gets stuck on earth because they stupidly missed ‘the light’ and they have no other choice but haunt the living. And since I’m your only friend … Well, I guess we’re both stuck with each other. Forever. What a comforting thought.’

‘Don’t be stupid, there are no ghosts. And you’re not my only friend either,’ he leaned forward onto Theo’s hands.

‘Oh yeah, who else would you be haunting?’

‘Ah, no, you would be the most fun to take the piss out of, but am just saying, I have other options.’

Theo squinted at him, suddenly struck by a moment in which Boris’ face looked somehow radiant, if he were to ever use that word. His hair was falling over his face, casting a shadow over his deep set eyes, making them seem even darker, par with the dark circles he’d been sporting for the past couple of weeks due to the amount of late night reading he’d been doing (somehow he’d managed to fuck up his sleeping schedule over winter break and now he could barely stay awake during the day anymore), but even so, there was enough light to distinguish the flush in his cheeks, a very rare occurrence in Boris’ complexion, which made him look like he had spent the past hour outside somewhere in the winter cold. It gave a certain colour and liveness to his face that Theo had only seen a handful of times before, but which he never got to appreciate enough, he looked almost healthy and sort of … good looking, in a very objective kind of way. He could see the attraction (plenty of girls at school approached Theo in the hallway asking for Boris’ number, having no idea that he owned a landline that was actually stuck to the wall, no chance of him owning a cell phone), but he figured he consisted a very particular _type_ and he couldn’t imagine who would have that type. Goths, maybe. And yet, in that moment, as he was sat in his lap hovering over him, his wrists clasped in Theo’s hands, his pinker-than-usual lips curled into a down-sided, lazy smirk and his eyelids half closed either from the vodka or the fact that he was trying to tease him, it didn’t matter, Theo couldn’t stop the realisation that Boris was in fact beautiful.

Slowly, he lowered Boris’ hands and set them on the floor on either side of his head, loosening his grasp around his wrists but not letting go completely. It seemed as if a silent agreement passed between them in that moment and they both knew what was going to happen. Theo’s heart was beating like a drum in his chest, he could hear it in his own ears, and yet, he couldn’t look away from Boris. He was searching his face, but Theo felt as if he would crumble completely if he gave Boris the sign he was looking for, so instead, he only tightened his grip around his wrists—it was all he could manage, but it was enough. He then realised Boris was inching closer, shyly and painstakingly slowly, afraid almost, all the while not averting his eyes from Theo’s in case he showed any sign he changed his mind, something he was determined not to do. Every fibre in his body tensed when Boris stopped just a few centimetres away from his face, he didn’t even realise his breath had hitched in his throat. It was as if time stopped and the only sound was his heartbeat in his ears and the only feeling was Boris’ soft, ragged breath against his lips. He was just as nervous, Theo realised, which made him feel a little better. His lips parted slightly to let out the breath he’d been holding and closed his eyes, waiting for it to happen, for his heart to finally burst, his skin to catch fire, his insides to implode and his whole life and everything he knew thus far to explode in a million fucking pieces that would get scattered all over the world. Except none of it happened, his heart didn’t burst and his skin didn’t catch fire. He did implode at the first contact with Boris’ lips, but only because he seemed to have sucked all the air from his lungs with that simple touch, along with the tension and the worry and everything he was thinking in that moment that wasn’t _Boris’ lips_. This kiss was unlike any of the others they’d shared before, quick and sloppy, in the haste of the moment, one foot out the door; this one was soft and patient, shy, sort of waiting for something. It happened as if they had all the time in the world to be there, so slowly and so gently that, at first, Theo was unsure Boris even _was_ kissing him, it wasn’t until he cupped his cheek that he actually _felt_ him there and Theo found himself wondering why on earth did he wait this long to let him do it again.

Of course the next day, while vomiting his guts out in Boris’ filthy toilet, he didn’t remember thinking any of that, and if someone were to tell him just how much he actually enjoyed the previous night, he would probably tackle them to the floor, but at least Boris stopped making any attempt at talking about it, so it wasn’t all that bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all i can say is: phew

**Author's Note:**

> if i don't reply on tumblr (pavlikovskaya), feel free to beat the shit out of me and tell me how fucking tacky and cliché this is on twitter @/opheliawtf


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